Israeli press review: Gaza attack prompted by soldiers collapsing tunnel
No evidence Rafah attack connected to Hamas leadership
Palestinian fighters who attacked Israeli troops in Gaza on Tuesday had been hiding in tunnels for months and do not seem to have had anything to do with the Hamas leadership, Israeli news site Walla reports.
An Israeli reservist was killed when the fighters fired at soldiers in southern Gaza’s Rafah.
In retaliation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered widespread attacks across the Gaza Strip, killing more than 100 Palestinians, including 46 children, in another massive Israeli violation of the ceasefire.
According to Walla, the Israeli military believes the fighters hid for a long time in a tunnel around the al-Janina neighbourhood east of Rafah, an area under Israeli control.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The attack was aimed at troops using heavy equipment.
According to military, the tunnel in which the Palestinian fighters were hiding began to collapse, prompting them to attack, which took the soldiers by surprise.
"At this stage, it is not known whether this is an attack plan approved by the Hamas leadership," the report said. Hamas denies that it ordered the attack.
According to reports in Israel, the soldier killed was a settler from the occupied West Bank, who was a heavy equipment operator.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich took on to X to eulogise the soldier.
Smotrich promised "to continue to do everything so that this war will end only with the annihilation of Hamas from the face of the earth".
An MP from Smotrich's Religious Zionist party demanded "revenge!" on his X account with a photo of the soldier attached.
Palestinian teen with autism abused by police
The mother and lawyer of an autistic teenage Palestinian citizen of Israel has told Haaretz that her son has been abused by prison guards after being detained over a week ago.
The boy, who is recognised as disabled by the state, was arrested with his mother in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank during a family visit.
His mother told Haaretz that soldiers broke into the house in the middle of the night and then "went into the children's room, aimed rifles and torches at them. The boy was shaking, he couldn't stand on his feet because of fear".
'He doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, [he's] on a concrete floor without a mattress or warm clothes'
- mother of detained disabled teenage boy
His mother, who was arrested with him, was released, but her son remained in custody after a court approved a one-week extension of his detention.
Today, another hearing is expected to be held on the police's request to extend his detention once more.
"He doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, [he's] on a concrete floor without a mattress or warm clothes," his mother told the Israeli news site Ynet. "He's a sick, helpless child, whose whole life depends on me."
His lawyer, Yigal Dotan, told Haaretz that the boy complained "about severe violence by guards in the IPS detention facility and about inhumane conditions." The Israel Prison Service denied these accusations.
"The violent practices he described to me are well known to me from the testimonies of security detainees since 7 October, and it seems that the fact that he is a helpless minor … did not persuade the prison guards at the facility to spare him," the lawyer added.
Saja Mishraki-Baransa, a lawyer with the Committee Against Torture campaign group, told Haaretz that the boy said "the treatment of him is cruel and humiliating, the guards and other detainees beat him, and he suffers from bullying."
"He's in a very bad mental and physical state," she added.
Nearly 300 Israeli soldiers attempt suicide since Gaza war began
According to Israeli military data, 279 soldiers on active duty tried to take their own lives since the beginning of 2024.
Thirty-three cases were defined as serious, according to a report in Haaretz.
Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023, 48 soldiers on active duty have killed themselves, according to official military figures.
Another 13 soldiers, who were not on active duty at the time of their suicide and are therefore not included in the official figures, killed themselves during the same period, according to Haaretz.
"Since the beginning of the war, there has been an increase in the number of soldiers who have committed suicide while on active duty, regular or reserve duty, compared to previous years," the report said.
"Many of those committed suicide were exposed to severe fighting incidents that apparently affected their mental state," a military source told Haaretz.
MP Ofer Kasif, who requested the data to be revealed, wrote on his X account that suicide among soldiers "will probably only get worse now, with the return of masses of morally wounded and traumatised people".
It "requires the formation of real support systems for male and female soldiers, and most importantly - to bring an end to wars, to a real peace," added Kasif, who is a member of the left-wing Hadash party.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
