Two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza and regional tensions escalated between Iran and the United States

Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as a result of an accidental explosion of an Israeli drone, a military official announced on Friday.

The military official, who requested to remain anonymous, said that the two soldiers were injured when an Israeli drone exploded, which had crashed near a military site in the Gaza Strip, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.

He added that two soldiers “approached the plane before it exploded shortly afterward,” noting that their deaths were announced in the hospital.

The Israeli army stated that the two soldiers were Nadav Kali (24 years old) and Ofek Muallem (23 years old).

This brings to 970 the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of the war following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,200 people.

Among these soldiers, seven were killed since the ceasefire took effect last year.

The war launched by Israel on Gaza in response to the October 7 attack resulted in the death of about 74,000 Palestinians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Hamas movement, and these are figures that the United Nations considers reliable.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, yesterday, Thursday, and Moscow said that the two sides agreed that a diplomatic settlement is the only way to end the tension in the Middle East sparked by the American-Israeli war against Iran.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued after Lavrov and Araghchi met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, “Current regional and international issues were discussed, with a focus on the situation surrounding Iran.”

She added, "It was emphasized that there is no alternative to a diplomatic settlement of the crisis sparked by the illegal actions of the United States and Israel."

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian signed a strategic partnership treaty in 2025 that stipulates strengthening bilateral relations and closer defense cooperation, but it does not include a clause for joint defense.

Pezeshkian had previously thanked Putin earlier this month for Moscow's position on the Iran war, and said that Moscow and Tehran could stand together in the face of what he called "American unilateralism."

In an interview broadcast yesterday, Pezeshkian said that the United States is the one who must decide when the war between the two countries will end, in response to a question about whether it is possible for the conflict to end by the end of the year.

Iran has threatened to expand the geographical scope of the conflict if it is exposed to new American and Israeli strikes, threatening to reach the Indian Ocean, and perhaps beyond it, while diplomatic efforts continue to end the war through Pakistani and Qatari mediation.

In parallel with the military and political escalation, new US sanctions began to weigh heavily on Iranian air traffic, with international flights canceled and Iranian companies prevented from reaching major regional destinations.

In the context of the Iranian escalation, Yahya Rahim Safavi, advisor to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said yesterday that the scope of the military confrontation currently extends from the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea, but “it is possible that this scope will expand, in response to a possible war, to the Indian Ocean, or perhaps beyond it.”

The mention of the Indian Ocean for the first time represents a more extensive geographical reference in previous Iranian threats, as the region gains strategic importance due to the presence of the US-British “Diego Garcia” military base, located 4,000 kilometers from the Iranian coast.

In conjunction with these statements, Iranian airlines canceled their flights to a number of countries, after US sanctions measures entered into force. In early September, Washington imposed sanctions on the Iranian aviation sector, warning foreign companies against providing services or assistance to it, including stopping the supply of fuel to Iranian aircraft.

In Hormuz, Kpler data showed that navigation and shipping traffic through the strait is at much lower levels than usual.