Israeli army death toll in Gaza battles tops 390

The Israel Defence Forces have announced the deaths of two more troops in fighting with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Staff Sgt. Aschalwu Sama, 20, from Petah Tikva, was an infantry soldier in the Nahal Brigade’s 932nd Battalion. Sama was wounded on November 14 and succumbed to his wounds on December 2, Caliber.Az reports, citing The Times of Israel.

Sgt. First Class (res.) Or Brandes, 25, from Shoham, was a soldier in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 82nd Battalion. He was killed on December 2 in a battle in central Gaza.

“And so, it has come to our family too,” wrote Brandes’s aunt Navah in a post on Facebook that described him as “loving and loved.”

In other posts to social media, acquaintances described Brandes as “the funniest person in the gang” and “a boy who was full of light, magic and sweetness.”

A friend of Aschalwu wrote it was “an honour to know you, hero of Israel,” while another posted that “it seems the Creator wants you close to him.”

Since the start of the war on October 7, the IDF has announced the deaths of 398 soldiers. Of those, 72 died during the ground offensive inside the Gaza Strip. The vast majority of the others were killed in fighting with Hamas militants in southern Israel, almost all of them on the day of Hamas’s initial devastating onslaught.

The war broke out when the Palestinian militant group launched a cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7 that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The 3,000 militants who invaded Israel during the assault also abducted at least 240 other people of all ages, including children and infants, and took them to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded with an intense land and air campaign aimed at destroying Hamas and securing freedom for the hostages.

Against this background, the Contact Group on settling the situation in the Gaza Strip will hold talks with the US administration this week, according to a diplomatic source in Ankara.

"We expect contact group talks in the United States this week," the source said.

The Contact Group has already held talks in Beijing, Moscow, London and Paris. It includes the foreign ministers of Türkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Palestinian foreign minister and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) secretary general have also participated in some of the group's talks.

Before that, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani had a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during which he indicated the need to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

During the conversation, the chairman of the Qatari government expressed concern about the continued bombing in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Washington is considering various options for governing the Gaza Strip after the fighting ends, but no good one is among them.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is now looking for someone to run the enclave after the war, but they are choosing "the best of a range of very bad options to start with”.

As the Biden administration begins to plan for “the day after” in Gaza — confronting problematic questions such as who runs the territory once the shooting stops, how it gets rebuilt and, potentially, how it eventually becomes a part of an independent Palestinian state — the stakeholders face a host of unattractive options.

Israel does not want to take on the job of running Gaza. A better option would be the Palestinian National Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. However, the US also notes the possibility of placing the governance of the Gaza Strip under the external control of an international force led by Arab states.