Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said a military investigation is under way into a “disaster” in which 21 soldiers were killed in an attack in central Gaza, the army’s highest death toll from a single incident since the invasion of the Palestinian territory. A total of 24 Israeli soldiers were killed on Monday, a significant setback that could add to mounting calls for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged enclave.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that 21 soldiers were killed in the central Gaza Strip in one of the deadliest attacks of the more than three-month-old war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Three more soldiers were killed in a separate attack.

Israel has given Hamas a proposal through Qatari and Egyptian mediators that includes up to two months of a pause in fighting as part of a multiphase deal, Axios reported on Monday.

The United States and Britain launched new strikes on Yemen’s Houthis Monday, saying their second round of joint military action against the Iran-backed rebels was in response to continued attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said Israel cannot have a “veto” right on the creation of a Palestinian state, a day after EU foreign ministers held talkswith their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts about ways to achieve peace in the Middle East.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 25,490 people have been killed, mostly women and children, and 63,354 have been injured in Israeli strikes on the enclave since October 7. Israeli officials say 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in southern Israel. Militant fighters took some 240 hostages during the attack and 136 are still in Gaza, according to Israeli figures. The Israeli military says 200 soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of its ground operations in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

Source: France 24