The Israeli army said in a statement that Major (Reserve) Vladimir Loza, 36, who served in the 7020th Battalion of the Fifth Brigade, was killed during a military operation in the southern Gaza Strip, without providing further details.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that the incident occurred Monday evening in the Al-Janina neighborhood of Rafah, "as soldiers from the Fifth Brigade prepared to destroy underground buildings and infrastructure." The authority noted that during the operation, "an explosive device exploded, killing Loza and slightly wounding two other soldiers."
Israel's Channel 12 reported that the explosion occurred inside a building during the raid, causing a wall to collapse on top of the soldiers, killing a reserve officer and wounding two others.
The Israeli occupation army announced on Monday evening that another soldier was killed and an officer from the Golani Brigade was injured during clashes in southern Gaza.
In a related development, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced on Tuesday via its Telegram channel that it had targeted an Israeli armored personnel carrier with a Yassin 105 missile near the Abu Holi junction, southeast of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
On an almost daily basis, the Qassam Brigades announce the killing and wounding of Israeli soldiers and the targeting of their vehicles during ground battles in Gaza. They also broadcast footage of their "special" operations against Israeli occupation forces in audio and video.
According to Israeli military data, the death toll since the start of the genocide on October 7, 2023, has risen to 895 soldiers, including 451 in the ground battles in the Gaza Strip that began on the 27th of the same month.
The same data also indicates that 6,108 soldiers have been injured since October 7, 2023 , including 2,803 in ground battles in the Gaza Strip.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has waged a war of extermination in Gaza, leaving more than 200,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 9,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, and a famine that has claimed the lives of many.
