Two soldiers were killed during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, the military says. They both pair served in the Givati Brigade's reconnaissance unit.
The slain soldiers are listed as Staff Sgt. Nachman Meir Haim Vaknin, 20, from Eilat and Staff Sgt. Noam Bittan, 20, from Yad Rambam.
They died as a result of a blast in a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in the Rafah area. Another two soldiers and an officer of the Givati reconnaissance unit were seriously wounded in the same explosion.
In addition, in a separate incident, a reservist of the 5832nd Combat Engineering Battalion was seriously injured in Rafah after his D9 armored bulldozer was fired at with an RPG.
282 soldiers have died in Gaza since the start of the ground operation on October 27, 2023.