Israeli army death toll in Gaza conflict climbs to 574 Including 235 in ground ops

Israeli Defense Forces losses since the conflict in the Gaza Strip escalated have reached 574.

The Israel Defense Forces announces that a soldier was killed fighting in southern Gaza yesterday, raising the death toll in the ground offensive against Hamas to 235, The Times of Israel reports.

The soldier is named as Staff Sgt. Simon Shlomov, 20, of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 202nd Battalion, from Kiryat Bialik.

Meanwhile, addressing American Jewish leaders on February 18, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the Israeli army was going to unprecedented lengths to protect civilians in Gaza during the war with Hamas, while insisting: “We have to finish the job.”

Netanyahu promised that none of the accusations would stop Israel’s offensive against the Gaza terror group, pledging “total victory against [Hamas] savages”.

“When we set out to do this, even our best friends said to us, ‘It can’t be done,'” Netanyahu said of the war Israel has been fighting against Hamas since October 7 — when terrorists launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 253.

“Our brave soldiers are in the tunnels demolishing the infrastructure of these killers,” Netanyahu said, lauding the IDF and the efforts he said it makes to protect civilians.

“The Israeli army is going [to] lengths that no other army has gone through in protecting civilians,” said Netanyahu, adding that “total victory means the release of the hostages.”

International organizations in Gaza have increasingly warned of dire humanitarian conditions in the enclave. Israel has accused UN agencies of failing to keep up with aid going into the Strip. The mounting death toll has also led to intense global criticism, with Hamas saying nearly 29,000 people had been killed in the war. Israel says at least 10,000 of those are combatants, and that it is impossible to avoid civilian casualties, as Hamas’s military infrastructure is embedded within the population everywhere Israeli troops are operating.

It is believed that 134 hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive.

The prime minister also praised the US government and the public for rejecting the genocide allegations, and thanked US President Joe Biden for his assistance throughout the war, saying he agreed that everything must be done to get civilians out of harm’s way.

Netanyahu went on to call for pressure on Qatar to press Hamas to release the hostages it still has in captivity.

“Deal or no deal, we have to finish the job to achieve total victory,” Netanyahu said.

“One thing Israel cannot agree to is an international diktat that would… force a Palestinian state on Israel after the horrors of October 7,” he said, insisting the Israeli people were united around this. Netanyahu called on the Conference of Presidents to adopt the same resolution his cabinet passed earlier in the day against any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

On the Hamas defeat, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that its leadership abroad is looking to replace its Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, as the terror group’s battalions in Khan Younis have been dismantled and an offensive in Rafah looms, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday.

Security forces have yet to get their hands on Sinwar, or Hamas’s military commander Mohammad Deif and his deputy Marwan Issa. But Sinwar has reportedly been out of contact with the terror group’s leadership abroad since the end of January and his involvement in ongoing hostage negotiations is in question.

“Hamas does not trust its commanders — this is a very, very noticeable thing,” Gallant said following an assessment with the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman.

“Hamas-Gaza is MIA, there is no one to talk to among leadership on the ground,” he said, alleging that Hamas leadership abroad was looking for new leaders in Gaza. “That means there is a tender [in Hamas] for who will run Gaza,” he said.

In Khan Younis, Gallant said some 200 terror suspects had surrendered to troops at Nasser Hospital, and dozens more at Al-Amal Hospital, which he argued indicated the loss of Hamas’s “fighting spirit.”

“People armed with RPGs, weapons, and guns came to the moment of truth and did not fight. This indicates something of their understanding of the power differential, that they understood their fate was to surrender or die — there is no third option,” he said.

Gallant said Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade had been “defeated and does not function as a military entity in any way.”

“Hamas is left with marginal [forces] in the central camps and with the Rafah Brigade, and what stands between them and a complete collapse as a military system is a decision by the IDF,” he said.

“There is no one here to come to their aid, no Iranians, no international aid,” Gallant said, vowing that the army would dismantle the remaining six Hamas battalions — two in central Gaza and four in Rafah.

“We have no right to stop as long as there are 134 hostages” held by Hamas, he added.

Also on February 18, the IDF said special forces operating at Nasser Hospital had located vehicles used by Hamas terrorists who participated in the October 7 onslaught, as well as Israeli-owned cars stolen during the massacre.

The operation at Nasser Hospital, which began Thursday, is being carried out by the Commando Brigade, Navy’s Shayetet 13, Shin Bet agents, and other special forces.

One of the stolen cars found at the medical centre belonged to a Nir Oz resident, according to the IDF. In a Hamas vehicle, troops found several weapons, including grenades.

The IDF said some of the terror operatives detained at the hospital were dressed up as hospital staff. Other suspects who were holed up at the hospital included many who participated in the October 7 massacre and have links to the hostages held by the terror group, it said.