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An Israeli soldier was killed in northern Gaza on Saturday, marking the first combat fatality in the coastal enclave in more than three months, since the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The IDF confirmed that Warrant Officer G'haleb Sliman Alnasasra, 35, a Bedouin tracker from the southern city of Rahat, was killed in an exchange of fire near the security buffer zone along the northern Gaza border, an area the military has been expanding in recent days. Three additional soldiers—a female officer, a combat medic and another tracker—were seriously wounded in the same incident.
According to a preliminary IDF investigation, a squad of Hamas terrorists is believed to have emerged from an undiscovered tunnel shaft and opened fire with an anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), hitting a military vehicle carrying the soldiers. The terrorists then detonated an improvised explosive device, killing Alnasasra.
The clash occurred near a forward operations base known as Post 40, where troops from the Northern Brigade of the Gaza Division were operating. The soldiers had been tasked with securing an area near a recently discovered Hamas tunnel close to the border fence.
The attackers reportedly spotted an IDF surveillance team approaching a checkpoint on the base’s rear access road. The vehicle, lightly armored and typically used in administrative zones assumed to be safer, was struck with an RPG. The explosion injured three soldiers onboard.
At the time, the new commander of the division’s Northern Brigade, Col. Omri Mashiach, was nearby at the Erez outpost. He quickly deployed to the scene with a brigade-level team of trackers. During the ensuing sweep of the area, a second explosive device was detonated 27 minutes after the initial RPG attack. The blast killed Alnasasra, who was part of the brigade commander’s team, and wounded two others.
All wounded personnel were evacuated by helicopter to hospitals in Israel.
The IDF believes that the same tunnel used by the attackers had been detected near the Gaza border across from the Israeli communities of Nir Am and Mefalsim. The assailants have not yet been located, and the army is investigating whether they may have retreated into nearby Beit Hanoun.
Military officials suspect that Hamas may have identified IDF activity near the tunnel in recent days and acted swiftly to exploit it.
Saturday’s death brings the number of Israeli military personnel killed since the start of the war to 848.
Working to prevent cross-border attacks
Israeli forces operating under the 252nd Reserve Division are working to establish a new security buffer zone along the Gaza border, part of a broader strategy to prevent cross-border attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The effort involves the construction of forward operating posts and a permanent military presence in the area to shield Israeli communities near the Gaza border from ground incursions and mortar fire. The Southern Command has increased operations in recent months to detect and destroy infiltration tunnels within this stretch, which extends approximately 500 to 1,000 meters into Gaza and is now staffed by hundreds of soldiers across fortified posts along roughly 65 kilometers of the border—from Kerem Shalom at the southern tip near Egypt to Zikim on the Mediterranean coast.
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IDF forces demolishing terror tunnels across Gaza
(Video: IDF)
At least two large Hamas tunnels, some located near newly established buffer zone positions, were discovered and destroyed in the past month. IDF officials say they intend to further expand the buffer zone, particularly in areas where densely populated Gaza neighborhoods directly abut the Israeli border, such as Shijaiyah across from Nahal Oz and Beit Lahia near Netiv HaAsara.
The buffer zone is primarily manned by reservists assigned to static defensive positions. Their mission mirrors the strategic goals of Israel’s former buffer zone in southern Lebanon, evacuated in 2000, and the current northern buffer being constructed on the Lebanese side of the Galilee, where five IDF outposts are being established.
Saturday’s fatal incident was the first in Gaza in two months involving the death of an Israeli soldier. On February 6, during a temporary ceasefire and hostage release operation, two soldiers—Sergeant First Class (res.) Nadav Cohen and Staff Sergeant Nachman Refael Ben Ami of the Golani Brigade—were killed when a military crane collapsed in northern Gaza.
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The last fatal combat encounter in Gaza prior to that took place on January 13, when five Nahal Brigade soldiers were killed in a building explosion in Beit Hanoun. The fallen were Capt. Yair Yaakov Shushan, Staff Sgt. Yahav Hadar, Staff Sgt. Guy Karmiel, Staff Sgt. Yoav Feffer and Staff Sgt. Aviel Wiseman.
Earlier Saturday, Palestinian sources in Gaza reported one fatality and several injuries in an Israeli strike on Khan Younis. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported that 92 Palestinians were killed and 219 wounded over the past two days.
The Palestinian Shehab News Agency reported late Friday that at least three people were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli strike on the al-Mawasi area, a designated humanitarian zone west of Khan Younis.