Jerusalem : The Israeli military confirmed the death of a young commanding officer during operations in the southern Gaza Strip, marking another deadly incident in Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza.
Reei Biran, a 21-year-old squad commander from the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) elite Golani Reconnaissance Unit, was killed on Friday. According to Israel’s state-owned Kan TV, the incident occurred when a Golani force operating in Khan Younis entered a building suspected of housing militant activity. While mining the structure, an explosion occurred, killing Biran.
Later the same day, the IDF announced that its armored units, supported by the Israeli Air Force, had neutralized an armed Palestinian squad that approached their forces and posed a direct threat in Khan Younis. The military also claimed to have dismantled multiple militant infrastructure sites—both above and below ground—and seized weapons and equipment during the operation, as reported by Xinhua news agency.
In a separate strike earlier, on June 30, Israel carried out an airstrike that killed Ramzi Ramadan Abd Ali Saleh, the head of Hamas’ naval forces in northern Gaza. The airstrike, conducted by an Israeli fighter jet in Gaza City, also killed two other Hamas operatives: Hisham Ayman Atiya Mansour, deputy head of Hamas’ mortar unit, and Nissim Muhammad Suleiman Abu Sabha, another operative in the same division.
According to Israeli authorities, Saleh had been a key figure in planning maritime attacks against Israeli forces and was described as a “significant source of knowledge” for Hamas.
Since Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, at least 6,860 Palestinians have been killed and 24,220 injured. These figures bring the total death toll in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October 2023 to a staggering 57,418, with more than 136,261 wounded, according to data released by Gaza’s health authorities.
The latest developments underscore the intensifying violence in the region and the heavy toll it continues to take on both sides.
