At least seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed after an armoured vehicle in which they were travelling was hit by an explosive in Gaza Strip, media reports said on Wednesday.

The incident occurred on Tuesday.

The soldiers were named on Wednesday as Lt. Matan Shai Yashinovski, 21, from Kfar Yona; Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, 20, from Rehovot; Staff Sgt. Niv Radia, 20, from Elyakhin; Sgt. Ronen Shapiro, 19, from Mazkeret Batya; Sgt. Shahar Manoav, 21, from Ashkelon; Sgt. Maayan Baruch Pearlstein, 20, from Eshhar; and Staff Sgt. Alon Davidov, 21, from Kiryat Yam, reported The Times of Israel.

The deceased soldiers were serving the 605th Combat Engineering Battalion.

According to an initial IDF probe, a Hamas terror group operative planted a bomb on the soldiers’ Puma armored combat engineering vehicle (CEV) while they were driving in Khan Younis, the news portal reported.

The blast left the vehicle on fire, and all efforts to douse the flames failed.

The Hamas group has taken responsibility for the incident.

Israeli Defence Minister Mourns Death Of Soldiers

Mourning the death of the soldiers, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X: "Our fighters fought bravely and fell during their mission to defend the State of Israel."

Over 400 Palestinians killed around private aid hubs, UN rights office says

At least 410 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to fetch from controversial new aid hubs in Gaza – a likely war crime – the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

The alert comes nearly a month since the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operating on 27 May in select hubs, bypassing the UN and other established NGOs.

Its food distribution points have been associated frequently with confusion and shooting as desperate and hungry Gazans rush to fetch supplies, said UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Keetan.

“Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution,” he insisted. “The weaponization of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law.”

In its latest update on the emergency, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that “scores of people of all ages are being killed and injured every day” in the shattered enclave.

“Humanitarian operations of sufficient scale are not facilitated, leaving unaddressed the critical needs of those who have so far survived,” it said.