Seven Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday when their armored vehicle was struck by an explosive device during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, marking one of the deadliest incidents for the Israel Defense Forces in recent months.
The soldiers were named on Wednesday as Lt. Matan Shai Yashinovski, 21, from Kfar Yona; Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, 20, from Rehovot; Staff Sgt. Niv Radia, 20, from Elyakhin; Sgt. Ronen Shapiro, 19, from Mazkeret Batya; Sgt. Shahar Manoav, 21, from Ashkelon; Sgt. Maayan Baruch Pearlstein, 20, from Eshhar; and Staff Sgt. Alon Davidov, 21, from Kiryat Yam.
They all served with the 605th Combat Engineering Battalion.
The deaths raised Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 440.
According to an initial IDF probe, Hamas militants planted a bomb on the soldiers’ Puma armored combat engineering vehicle while they were driving in Khan Younis.
The blast set the CEV on fire, and efforts to extinguish it were unsuccessful. All the soldiers inside perished in the blaze. The burnt remains of the CEV were later towed out of Gaza.
In a separate incident in the Khan Younis area, two soldiers of the 605th Battalion were wounded, one seriously and one lightly, by an RPG fired at a D9 armored bulldozer they were operating.
