Lt. Ori Gerlic, 20, from Meitar, was killed in an operational accident in the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF announced on Saturday evening.
Gerlic served as a platoon commander in the Shimshon Battalion (92) of the Kfir Brigade. He died after an IDF explosive charge detonated unintentionally during an operation.
His death follows a deadly incident approximately one month earlier, in which five soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, also part of the Kfir Brigade, were killed in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip. That explosion occurred during a military maneuver involving multiple explosive devices.
The five soldiers who fell in that incident were Sgt. Meir Shimon Amar, Cpl. Moshe Nissim Peresh, and Sgt. Noam Aharon Masgadya, all 20 years old and from Jerusalem, along with Sgt. Moshe Shmuel Noll, 21, from Beit Shemesh, and Staff Sgt. (res.) Binyamin Assouline, 28, from Haifa. Assouline served as a reservist fighter in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.
The soldiers were part of a ground force operating under the Northern Brigade during an attack that began on a Saturday night. Explosive devices were detonated against the force as it entered the area, accompanied by a tracker. During efforts to evacuate the wounded, the force came under heavy fire from armed terrorists.
Twelve additional soldiers were wounded to varying degrees in the same incident. They were evacuated by helicopter for treatment at Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba, Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood, and Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.
According to an initial IDF investigation, a powerful explosion took place at approximately 10 p.m., resulting in the soldiers’ deaths. Combat helicopters were quickly deployed to secure the area with gunfire and missile strikes, amid concerns that terrorists would attempt to attack the troops during the evacuation of the dead and wounded.