Monday saw the most terrible toll of IDF soldier’s lives lost in one day since the war against Hamas in Gaza began. 24 soldiers were killed, almost all reservists who volunteered for service to their country. The worst incident occurred only 600 meters from the Israel border where demolition experts were planting mines in two buildings to remove them as former observation posts for Hamas operatives. The mines detonated prematurely, collapsing the buildings on the 19 soldiers inside. It has been reported that an RPG fired by two Hamas terrorists initiated the blast. At the same time a tank nearby was hit by an RPG killing 2 soldiers. Meanwhile 3 other soldiers were killed in action in western Khan Younis, the most dense area of that city. If this toll occurred to US army personnel is would be equivalent to ca. 720 deaths.
Even though this is a terrible toll of death for the small country of Israel, it is considered that this accident of war cannot be allowed to deflect the country from its overall aim of defeating and destroying Hamas, after the terrible attack that massacred 1,200 Israelis and while there are still 136 hostages held in Gaza. Most Israelis agree on this, and the government is going ahead with the war in Gaza, and also counter-attacking Hezbollah over the northern border into Lebanon.
Although this level of loss is unsustainable, fortunately the war in Gaza is in its so-called third phase, where the major targets of limited. Once Khan Younis is flushed out there really only remain Rafah and the Egyptian border region. This may take another month or two. It should be noted that previous estimates of Hamas casualties did not include the estimated 1,200 terrorist captured and the ca. 1,000 injured (probably more with minor injuries). Adding these to the total of 9,000 estimated Hamas deaths during the war and ca. 1,300 killed on Oct. 7, that comes to a grand total of 12,500 Hamas terrorists put out of action, which is about 42% of the total number of 30,000 fighters that Hamas was estimated to have at the start of the war. This is certainly enough to render Hamas militarily ineffective, although it does not actually destroy its whole military and administrative apparatus.
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