Three Israeli hostages killed mistakenly in Gaza by Israeli forces had been holding up a white flag, according to an initial inquiry into the incident, a military official said yesterday.
The incident happened in an area of intense combat where Hamas militants operate in civilian attire and use deception tactics, the official said.
A soldier saw the hostages emerging tens of meters from Israeli forces in the area of Shejaiya, the official said.
Photo: AFP
“They’re all without shirts and they have a stick with a white cloth on it. The soldier feels threatened and opens fire. He declares that they’re terrorists, they [forces] open fire, two are killed immediately,” the official said.
The third hostage was wounded and retreated into a nearby building where he called for help in Hebrew, they said.
“Immediately the battalion commander issues a ceasefire order, but again there’s another burst of fire towards the third figure and he also dies,” the official said.
“This was against our rules of engagement,” they added.
The military on Friday identified the three hostages, all in their 20s, as Yotam Haim and Alon Shamriz, abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalka, abducted from nearby Kibbutz Nir Am, all kidnapped, along with about 250 people, by Hamas on Oct. 7.
The military said it had started “reviewing the incident,” and that “immediate lessons from the event have been learned” and passed on to all troops on the ground.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described their deaths as an “unbearable tragedy.”
Hundreds of people were yesterday expected to gather in Tel Aviv to call on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of 129 hostages still held in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“I am dying of fear,” said Merav Svirsky, sister of Hamas-held hostage Itay Svirsky, at a protest on Friday evening. “We demand a deal now.”
Last month, more than 100 hostages were freed in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails during a one-week truce, but fighting has since resumed.
The hostages’ deaths have heightened already fierce scrutiny of how Israel is conducting its ground and air assault in Gaza.
The White House, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has voiced growing concern over mounting civilian deaths.
“I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives — not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful,” US President Joe Biden said this week.
Fierce fighting continued in Gaza, as the Israeli army yesterday said it had raided two schools in Gaza City.
It said they were Hamas hiding places.
TV network al-Jazeera on Friday said that one of its journalists, Samer Abu Daqqa, had been killed and another, Wael al-Dahdouh, wounded by “shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack” in Khan Yunis.
More than 60 journalists and media staff have died since the war began, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
“We were reporting, we were filming, we had finished and we were with the civil defense, but when we were on the way back, they hit us with a missile,” said Dahdouh, who lost his wife, two children and grandchild earlier in the war.
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