Most of the victims are civilians, but at least 169 Israeli troops have been killed in the battles to repel Hamas fighters. Eleven of them were laid to rest at the cemetery in the night to Wednesday. A few steps from the tomb of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the brothers in arms of 20-year-old Noam Elimelekh Rottenberg lowered the coffin draped with Israel's blue-and-white flag into the grave.
