Israel says senior army officer killed during military operation in Jabalia refugee camp

The Israeli occupation forces have announced that Colonel Ehsan Daqsa, commander of the 401st Armoured Brigade, has been killed during military operations in northern Gaza. According to the Times of Israel, the 41-year-old senior officer was killed when his tank, along with one other, was hit by explosive devices during operations in the Jabalia refugee camp. Another Israeli soldier was seriously injured in the same incident.

Daqsa, who assumed command of the brigade in June, is one of the highest-ranking Israeli officers to have been killed since Israel’s offensive on Gaza began following the Hamas-led cross-border incursion on 7 October last year. He was from Daliyat Al-Karmel, a Druze town in the Haifa district of the occupation state, and had served in Israel’s Armoured Corps since 2001. Haaretz reported that Daqsa also led an independent armoured unit within the Paratroop Brigade during the 2006 Lebanon War.

Since October last year, the Israeli military has said that more than 750 of its soldiers have been killed, including more than 350 killed in ground operations in Gaza. In addition, at least 43 Israeli troops have died in attacks along the northern front across the Lebanese border.

The Israeli army has pressed ahead with a massive offensive, now in its 17th day, in northern Gaza amid a suffocating siege on the area. The onslaught is the latest episode in Israel’s brutal onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza that has killed more than 42,600 people, mostly women and children, and injured 100,000 others since last October. An estimated 11,000 more Palestinians are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel.

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