IDF soldier killed battling Hamas terrorists in Gaza

His cousin, Staff Sgt. Elkana Navon, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Jenin, Samaria on Aug. 31.

By JNS

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed on Friday battling Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip.

Staff Sgt. Ittai Fogel, 22, served as a tank commander in the 46th Armored Battalion of the IDF’s 401st “Iron Tracks” Brigade. He was from Yakir in Samaria.

Fogel’s cousin, Staff Sgt. Elkana Navon, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Jenin, Samaria on Aug. 31.

On Thursday, three IDF reservists were killed and two others seriously wounded when their vehicle hit an explosive device in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza.

The fatalities were named as Master Sgt. (res.) Ori Moshe Borenstein, 32, from Moreshet; Master Sgt. (res.) Tzvi Matityahu Marantz, 32, from Bnei Adam; and Maj. (res.) Netanel Hershkovitz, 37, from Jerusalem. All three were part of the 5460th support unit of the IDF’s 460th Brigade.

Israeli ground forces entered the Palestinian coastal enclave on Oct. 27 following a weeks-long air campaign in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks in the northwestern Negev, in which terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands and abducted more than 250 men, women and children and brought them to Gaza—101 who are still there.

The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion currently stands at 352, and at 735 on all fronts since the Hamas-led massacre, according to official IDF military data.

Additionally, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in the Strip in May.