TEL AVIV, December 7./TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces has reported that Gal Eisenkot, the youngest son of the former Chief of IDF General Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and current member of the war cabinet, was killed in action in Gaza.
"Reserve Sergeant Gal Meir Eisenkot from Herzliya <...> was killed in action in the northern Gaza Strip at the age of 25. His family has been notified. The Israel Defense Forces expresses its condolences to the family" and will continue to support it, the statement said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed condolences to Gadi Eisenkot and his wife Hana, calling Gal Eisenkot "a brave soldier and a real hero." "The government of Israel and the citizens of Israel mourn with you. Our heroes didn't die in vain. We will continue to fight until we win," said the prime minister, whose remarks were released by the Prime Minister's Office.
Gadi Eisenkot is a general who served as chief of the Israel Defense Forces General Staff from 2015 to 2019. In 2022, he was elected to the Knesset (Israel's parliament) running on the centrist State Camp bloc ticket, which became the opposition bloc following the elections. After the military operation began in the Gaza Strip, a war cabinet was formed in Israel, which included Eisenkot as a minister without portfolio, along with the leader of his bloc, Beni Gantz, who is also a former chief of the General Staff.
Besides them, the war cabinet is made up of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.