An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, the military announced.
Sgt. First Class (res.) Malkia Gross, 25, from Susya (Susia), served with the 205th “Iron Fist” Reserve Armored Brigade’s 9212th Battalion. The community of Susya, in the southern Hebron Hills region has lost several of its sons in Gaza since the war began, including Maoz Fenigstein (age 25), Maor Lavi (age 33).
The military was probing the circumstances of Gross’s death.
The IDF’s 162nd Division continues to carry out targeted counterterror raids in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, with soldiers locating weapons and underground infrastructure, the military said on Sunday morning.
Troops of the Givati Infantry Brigade, which is part of the 162nd Division, eliminated a squad of armed terrorists in the area.
At the same time, forces of the 99th Infantry Division worked to “clear the center of the Gaza Strip from terrorist infrastructure, weapons and armed terrorist squads,” the IDF said in the Sunday announcement.
The Multidimensional “Ghost” special operations task force of the 99th Division also killed an unspecified number of terrorists in close-quarters combat, with sniper fire and through drone strikes.
On Saturday, Israeli Air Force drones and fighter jets were said to have struck “dozens” of Hamas targets throughout the coastal enclave.
On Friday, the army announced that the Multidimensional Unit carried out a raid on a university building that was being used as a Hamas headquarters. The troops discovered weapons and explosive devices inside the building, from which terrorists had fired on IDF troops.
In addition, an IAF drone destroyed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket launch site in the humanitarian area in Khan Yunis. The IDF noted that “many efforts were made” to warn noncombatants in the area.
On Thursday, two IDF soldiers were killed in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza by a Hamas mortar.
The troops, from the Alexandroni Reserve Infantry Brigade’s 9203rd Battalion, were identified as Sgt. First Class (res.) Omer Smadga, 25, from Ganot Hadar, near Netanya, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Saadia Yaakov Dery, 27, from Tel Aviv (originally from the community of Eli).
The total death toll among IDF troops since the start of the Gaza ground operation on Oct. 27 now stands at 313, and at 665 on all fronts since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, according to IDF data.
Additionally, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Israel Border Police “Yamam” National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was mortally wounded in Gaza earlier this month during a mission to rescue four hostages.
