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An Israeli reservist soldier was killed in an attack carried out by Palestinian terror operatives against troops stationed in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the military announced Wednesday morning.
The attack took place during a ceasefire that began several weeks ago.
The Israel Defense Forces launched “a series of significant strikes” in response, saying it targeted dozens of terror targets and operatives, including commanders in Hamas and other terror groups. Gaza health authorities reported more than 100 dead in the strikes.
Following the strikes, Israel announced at 10 a.m. that the ceasefire was once again in effect.
The slain soldier was named as Master Sgt. (res.) Yona Efraim Feldbaum, 37, a heavy machinery operator in the Gaza Division, from the West Bank settlement of Neria.
According to an initial IDF probe, enemy snipers fired at a building used by troops and at an army excavator operating in Rafah’s Jenina neighborhood at around 3:45 p.m.
The gunfire killed Feldbaum, who was operating the excavator.
A short while later, the operatives fired several RPGs at the IDF forces, hitting an armored vehicle in the area but causing no additional injuries, according to the preliminary investigation.
In an immediate response, the IDF said it struck several targets in the area that posed a threat to its troops, including buildings and tunnel shafts.
The Jenina neighborhood is located on the eastern side of the Yellow Line that demarcates the military’s pullback in the Gaza Strip — an area under Israeli control under the ceasefire.
Despite the area being under Israeli control, the IDF has assessed that is a pocket of operatives holed up there. As troops have worked to clear the neighborhood of Hamas infrastructure — including a tunnel network — operatives have emerged from underground and attempted attacks.
Last week, two soldiers were killed in a similar attack in the same neighborhood, which prompted a wave of IDF airstrikes against Hamas.
Israel blamed Hamas for both attacks. The terror group has denied involvement.
Between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the Israeli Air Force conducted a wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip, with Hamas health authorities — which do not distinguish between civilians and combatants — reporting at least 104 dead, including dozens of women and children.
The army said that it had targeted over 30 commanders in Hamas and other terror groups in the Strip during the strikes.
“In accordance with the directive of the political echelon, and following a series of strikes, in which dozens of terror targets and terrorists were struck, the IDF has begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire after Hamas violated it,” the military said in a statement at 10 a.m.
“The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” the military added.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, threatened Hamas leaders abroad following the deadly attack on troops in Rafah.
“Dozens of Hamas commanders were eliminated in a powerful IDF operation since yesterday in response to the attack on IDF soldiers and the blatant violation of the agreement to return the fallen hostages, in addition to strikes on dozens of infrastructure targets,” Katz said in a statement as the ceasefire took effect again.
“There is and will be no immunity for anyone in the leadership of the Hamas terror organization, neither for those wearing suits nor for those hiding in tunnels. Anyone who raises a hand against IDF soldiers, his hand will be severed,” he said.
Katz added that “anyone who attacks IDF soldiers and breaches agreements will pay the full price.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to carry out “powerful strikes” in Gaza in response to Hamas’s violation of the ceasefire, including the killing of the soldier and the terror group’s failure to return the 13 remaining bodies of hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal reached earlier this month.
Israel has accused Hamas of multiple violations of the deal, and has charged that the terror group knows the location of the vast majority, or even all, of the remaining bodies of hostages, and is purposely stalling and staging fake discoveries of bodies.
On Monday night, Hamas handed over partial remains it claimed belonged to one of the 13 hostages whose bodies are still in Gaza, but were later discovered by Israel to belong to a hostage who was recovered by Israeli troops in December 2023.
The military released footage showing Hamas staging the fake recovery of those remains, bringing them out of a building and placing them in a large hole operatives had dug in the ground in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. They then covered the body bag in dirt and pretended to uncover it for the first time in front of the Red Cross.
Separately, the military wing of the Hamas terror group announced on Tuesday night that it managed to “retrieve” the bodies of two hostages in the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, although it did not hand them over to Israel.
The Al-Qassam Brigades named the two hostages it claimed to have found on Tuesday. Israeli media outlets generally refrain from publishing the names until the families of the hostages have been notified.
Earlier Tuesday, Hamas said it had located the body of a hostage in a tunnel in southern Gaza, and planned to hand it over to Israel at 8 p.m. Hamas later said it was postponing the handover due to Israel’s own “violations” of the ceasefire.
Agencies contributed to this report.
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