IOF soldier killed in Gaza as 'Israel' violated agreement
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Israeli authorities use the death of a soldier in Rafah as a pretext for renewed Israeli airstrikes across Gaza.
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Israeli excavators work in the Gaza Strip as the sun sets, Palestine, on October 14, 2025. (AP)
An Israeli reservist soldier was killed in an attack in Rafah, the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military command confirmed on Wednesday, marking the third Israeli fatality since the latest Gaza ceasefire took effect earlier this month.
The soldier, a reservist Master Sergeant, was a heavy machinery operator in the Israeli occupation forces' Gaza Division. The reservist was killed while operating an excavator in the Jenina neighborhood of Rafah, where occupation forces are destroying homes and other infrastructure, amid the ongoing ceasefire agreement.
Jenina lies within what is recognized as the area east of the yellow line, which is the area inside the Gaza Strip in which occupation forces have repositioned themselves following their initial withdrawal.
Two other soldiers were killed in the same neighborhood last week when an unexploded ordnance was set off during excavation works, media reports revealed.
At the time, the Israeli military command and government blamed Hamas for the death of the soldiers, although sources within the US administration pointed to the accidental nature of the incident last week, which the Palestinian Resistance denied involvement in.
At the time, the Israeli occupation government ordered intense airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing dozens in the besieged enclave. "Israel" made assertions about a supposed attack by Resistance fighters who allegedly fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at forces in Jenina, claims it has repeated regarding Tuesday's incident.
Read more: 'Israel' obstructing Gaza body recovery, creating false claims: Hamas
Israeli aggression ensues
Israeli authorities also said that the remains of a body transferred earlier today by the Palestinian Resistance, as part of the exchange arrangement, belonged to a captive whose partial remains had already been returned in a previous handover. Using the mix-up and the death of the soldier in Rafah as a pretext, the Israeli government launched a series of strikes on Gaza that have killed at least 100 Palestinians.
As a result of the strikes, al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that it will postpone handing over the remains of bodies it located on Tuesday due to the intense Israeli escalation.
Al-Qassam Brigades later revealed that it was able to recover the bodies of Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch. The brigades explained that Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip are debilitating search and excavation operations, which would delay exchanges.
It is worth noting that authorities in Gaza, under international supervision, are excavating multiple sites bombed by Israeli aircraft in the Gaza Strip to recover the bodies and remains of captives buried under the rubble.
