TEL AVIV, May 15. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has lost 621 troops in clashes with Palestinian radical group Hamas since the conflict escalated in October 2023, the army press service said.

According to the latest data, another Israeli serviceman was killed in the south of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. The Times of Israel noted that this is the first military fatality since ground forces entered Rafah overnight on May 7 and took control of a checkpoint on the border with Egypt. Thus, since the onset of the ground operation in Gaza the Israeli army has lost 273 troops.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.