21 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza building collapse
On the streets of Tel Aviv, confusion and concern mount on the war’s 109th day

Israeli troops carry the coffin of fellow soldier Captain Elkana Vizel during his funeral in the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on January 23, 2024, a day after he was killed in combat in Gaza. Photo by Getty Images
TEL AVIV — Israelis woke up Tuesday morning to confusion about news that 21 reservists died Monday in the IDF’s single deadliest incident so far in the Gaza war.
People throughout Tel Aviv doomscrolled, struggling to understand if the fatal collapse of structures that killed 19 of those reservists was caused by their own mines planted to demolish the buildings or by a rocket launched by a Palestinian rocket-propelled grenade that an IDF spokesperson said simultaneously hit a tank that was protecting them, killing two Israeli soldiers inside.
“Probably both,” said Udi Weiss, taking cover under a café awning from heavy rain here on this 109th day of the war. “Sounds like the shot set off the explosives, making it worse.” He added, trailing off, “As if we needed things to get worse …”
Smartphones in hand, Tel Avivians on buses, in a north Jaffa neighborhood laundromat and a City Center barber shop combed through the list of fallen reservists in search of names they recognized.
“Yoav Levi? Could that be Yaron’s boy?” one woman mumbled to another at a bus stop.
The fatal explosion in South Gaza, plus the deaths of three other Israeli soldiers killed in the area early Monday, brings the IDF’s ground operation death toll to 219.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza reported that 195 people there were killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours. Many of them died as the IDF says its forces completed its siege of Khan Younis, a city in southwest Gaza, overnight. The death toll in Gaza surpassed 25,000 earlier this week, according to the ministry.
As morning commuters kept updating their news feeds, 11 “Red Alerts” — real-time notices about rocket attacks on Israel — buzzed on their phones about shelling in Northern Israel. Then came news alerts that Hezbollah claimed responsibility for shelling IDF’s aerial surveillance equipment in Mount Meron as retribution for “assassinations in Lebanon and Syria.” That was later followed by two more two more Red Alerts about rocket attacks in the Galilee.
By midday, news broke that a man had been arrested for allegedly setting fire to an art installation in Tel Aviv created to honor Israeli soldiers still being held in Gaza. And people lunching in Jaffa discussed headlines that the Israeli government offered Hamas’ Gaza-based leaders exile in exchange for a cease-fire.
It is, they agreed, a head-spinning news day.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.