Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Gaza on Saturday, in one of the deadliest incidents for the country’s military in eight months of war.
Israeli media reported the troops died in the border city of Rafah when their armoured vehicle was hit by a “major explosion”.
The Israeli military named one of the casualties as Captain Wassem Mahmud, 23.
Families of the other seven soldiers have been informed and their names were due to be released later, according to Israeli media on Saturday.
According to an initial investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the soldiers were killed inside a Namer armoured combat engineering vehicle.
They were the fifth or sixth vehicle travelling in a convoy at around 5am on Saturday morning.
The convoy had just been involved in an overnight offensive against Hamas in the northwestern areas of Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, during which troops killed some 50 gunmen, according to the IDF.
Cause of blast unclear
It is unclear what caused the explosion.
The Israeli military is investigating whether the vehicle was hit by a bomb planted ahead of time or struck by Hamas operatives who approached the vehicle with an explosive device.
The IDF is also exploring the possibility that explosives stored on the outside of the vehicle were responsible, although it is considered unlikely such an explosion would have caused such significant casualties.
There was no gunfire during the incident, and the vehicle was not at a standstill when the blast occurred, the preliminary investigation found.
The fatalities represent the greatest number of Israeli soldiers killed in a single incident since January, when 21 died in central Gaza during a confrontation with Hamas.
It brings the death toll of IDF soldiers killed during the ground offensive in the coastal strip to 307.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct 7 in the Israeli offensive, according to the Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza.