Master Sgt. (res.) Asaf Cafri, H’yd,  a 26-year-old reservist from Beit Chashmonai, was killed by sniper fire in northern Gaza on Thursday.

An officer from the Yahalom unit and a reserve combat soldier in the 79th Battalion were seriously injured in the same incident, and another combat soldier was moderately injured.

The incident occurred when the soldiers, most of them reserve armored soldiers, were traveling in a tank in the IDF buffer zone in the northern Strip, near Beit Hanoun. At some point, the soldiers exited the tank to carry out an operational mission.

Hamas terrorists lying in wait fired an anti-tank missile at them, which failed to hit them, and at the same time carried out sniper fire, killing Cafri, z’l, and wounding the three others. The terrorists managed to flee the area before the soldiers could return fire.

The incident occurred near the place where IDF tracker G’haleb Sliman Alnasasra fell last Shabbos. The IDF is investigating whether the cell that attacked the forces on Thursday is the same cell that killed Alnasasra and injured five soldiers.

Following the attack, the IDF launched an extensive wave of air and artillery strikes, attacking about 40 Hamas terror targets in the northern Gaza Strip.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)