At least nine Israeli soldiers were killed in three separate incidents in the Gaza Strip, the military said on Tuesday.
The Israeli army said the incidents occurred on Monday. Six of the soldiers died in an explosion intended to destroy a workshop used by Hamas militants to manufacture rockets.
The explosives had been transported by lorry to the area of the Bureij refugee district, located in the central part of the coastal strip, it said.
The Jerusalem Post wrote that it is still unclear whether the explosion was caused by a technical error or an explosive device.
Since the start of the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza at the end of October, 185 servicemen and women have been killed and more than 1,000 others have been injured, according to military figures.
A total of 519 servicemen and women have been killed since the October 7 attacks when Palestinian Hamas militants and other groups launched a bloody raid on Israel, killing 1,200 and kidnapping around 240.
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive, which have killed more than 23,000 people and injured tens of thousands more, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. These figures cannot currently be independently verified.
Meanwhile, at least three members of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement were killed on Tuesday when an Israeli drone hit their car in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah and Lebanese security sources said.
Hezbollah said their fighters attacked an Israeli post in Malikiyah and claimed they scored direct hits. According to the Lebanese sources, Israeli forces retaliated by shelling a cluster of Lebanese villages in southern Lebanon. They added that there was heavy Israeli military aerial activity over the western and central sectors of southern Lebanon.
On Monday, Hezbollah said an Israeli drone hit and killed Wissam al-Tawil, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander.
According to a Hezbollah statement, al-Tawil was one of its elite commanders who participated in several attacks against Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 on Monday evening, “As far as the attack in southern Lebanon is concerned, we have taken responsibility.”
Israel does not normally comment on media reports about foreign missions.
Katz, a minister from the conservative ruling party Likud, was responding to questions from the presenters of the station, which is located on the far right of the political spectrum.
He stated during the televised interview that Israel was behind the targeted killing of al-Tawil.
Lebanese security sources said al-Tawil was part of Hezbollah’s elite al-Radwan Brigade which is an elite Hezbollah unit that was trained to fight by Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that al-Tawil was responsible for several attacks on Israel, including the killing and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in July 2006, which was considered the trigger for the war between Israel and Hezbollah at the time.
In Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began talks on Tuesday about the Gaza war and the explosive situation in the Middle East with Israeli leaders.
He was greeted by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as his counterpart Israel Katz in Tel Aviv.
Blinken had said that he planned to share what he had heard during his previous diplomatic visits to other neighbouring countries.
“I’ve just come from a number of countries in the region, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and I want to be able to share some of what I heard from those leaders with the president, as well as with the prime minister and the Cabinet later today,” Blinken said.
“And there’s lots to talk about in particular, about the way forward” with regard to the Gaza war.
Blinken also plans to meet relatives of hostages who are still being held in the Gaza Strip three months after the start of the war.
The US is aiming to prevent a wider escalation of the war in Gaza – especially Lebanon.
Blinken spoke of “incredibly challenging times for Israel, for countries in the region, and especially for people who continue to suffer.”
President Herzog thanked Blinken for his country’s “steadfast commitment to Israel’s safety and to making sure that Israel wins this war, because it’s a war that affects international values and the values of the free world.”
In light of the hearing on the Gaza war before the International Court of Justice, which begins on Thursday, Herzog said of South Africa’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, “There’s nothing more atrocious and preposterous than this claim.”
“Actually, our enemies, the Hamas, in their charter call for the destruction and annihilation of the State of Israel, the only nation-state of the Jewish people,” he said.
In Egypt, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urgently called during a visit to Cairo on Tuesday for new humanitarian ceasefires to supply the suffering Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip with aid.
