6 IDF soldiers emerge unharmed from Rafah building collapse

A military source reported that the building fell not because of terrorist activity, but because the foundation was old and in disrepair.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Six IDF soldiers from the Givati Brigade emerged unscathed Thursday morning after a building collapsed in Rafah.

The troops from the Tzabar Battalion had spent the night in the building.

The soldiers successfully evacuated the building with no injuries despite the severity of the collapse.

A military source reported that the building fell not because of terrorist activity, but because the foundation was old and in disrepair.

The IDF resumed its maneuvers in Gaza last month after Hamas refused to continue the exchange of hostages in return for a weeks-long ceasefire, thousands of tons of humanitarian aid and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli military believes Hamas was surprised by the renewal of fighting in which several hundred senior terrorists and Hamas civilian leaders were killed in more than 1,300 attacks by land and air that also destroyed terror infrastructure and command centers.

The IDF controls some 40% of the Gaza Strip, especially in the north and south, and has fashioned a new corridor, called Morag, to cut off the town of Rafah, which borders Egypt, from Khan Younis, the major city to its north.

During the most recent ceasefire, the army withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor, which runs east to west through central Gaza City. However, it maintained its presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, a strategically important strip on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

This area remains critical for cutting off the flow of weapons—which had long sustained Hamas—particularly since the group seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a violent takeover in 2007.

Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the IDF to seize control of the entire Gaza Strip, impose a military government over the coastal enclave and implement US President Donald Trump’s Gaza resettlement plan.