Israel is reeling from the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 admission that it shot and killed three Israelis in Gaza on Friday. The three had been taken hostage by Hamas during the group\u2019s October 7 terror attack. The IDF says the shooting was against its rules of engagement and that the soldiers involved would face disciplinary procedures. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what we know. <\/p>\n
The three men were killed during an IDF operation around the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on Friday. <\/p>\n
On Saturday, an IDF official said the trio had emerged from a building tens of meters away from a group of Israeli troops. They were shirtless and were waving a white flag, according to the official, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about an ongoing investigation. <\/p>\n
At least one soldier felt threatened and opened fire, killing two of the men immediately. The third was wounded and ran back inside the building. The Israeli unit overheard a cry for help in Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his troops to stop shooting. However, there was another burst of gunfire. The third hostage died later. Their shooting while waving a white flag was in violation of IDF rules of engagement, the official added. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear which hostage survived initially and when he was killed, the official added. <\/p>\n
Israeli soldiers did not anticipate that they would be approached by hostages, but instead thought they would find them either in a building, in a tunnel or handcuffed, according to IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari. <\/p>\n
He said at a news conference Saturday that Israel\u2019s military did not have intelligence about the three hostages mistakenly killed, adding: \u201cThis is a mistake and a malfunction.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the tragic incident where three Israeli hostages were mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers, searches were conducted in a building adjacent to where the incident took place,\u201d the IDF said. <\/p>\n
In a statement released late Sunday accompanied by pictures, the IDF said the three men had tried to use leftover food to create signs calling for help. <\/p>\n
\u201cSigns calling for help, apparently using leftover food were located. Based on a field investigation, it appears that the three hostages were in the building where the signs were located, for some period of time,\u201d the IDF said. <\/p>\n
One of the photos shows a white sheet with the words \u201chelp\u201d and \u201cthree hostages\u201d written on the sheet in Hebrew. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe incident is under review,\u201d the IDF said, adding \u201cThe IDF has notified the families with the additional findings that have been found so far, and will continue to do so.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shejaiya has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days,\u00a0with Israeli forces confronting ambush attempts and attacks that involved suicide bombers or assailants dressed in civilian clothes, according to the IDF. <\/p>\n
Hagari said on Friday that the shooting was \u201ca sad and painful incident.\u201d The IDF assumed the three men had either escaped or been abandoned by their captors due to the fighting in Shejaiya. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have told our troops is to be extra vigilant and do one more safety check before dealing with kinetics with any threat that they face on the battlefield,\u201d Conricus said, \u201cbut it is a very challenging environment that our troops are in.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF alleged earlier Friday that Hamas has attempted to use dolls and backpacks with speakers playing sounds of crying or children speaking in Hebrew to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap. <\/p>\n
All three hostages were young men. Yotam Haim and Alon Shimriz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while Samer Talalka was taken near Kibbutz Nir Am. <\/p>\n
Talalka, 25, was a member of Israel\u2019s Bedouin community and\u00a0the eldest of 10 children. He lived in the town of Hura and worked with his father and brothers at a chicken hatchery near Kibbutz Nir Am. <\/p>\n
On October 7, he was with his father at the chicken hatchery and told his sister in a phone call that he had been injured by terrorist gunfire, until the call disconnected, according to the Israeli Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. <\/p>\n
Haim, 28, was gifted musician and heavy metal fan. He had played the drums for 20 years and\u00a0was supposed to perform at a Metal Music Festival in Tel Aviv on October 7th with his band, Persephore. Yotam last spoke with his family that morning. He told them his house had burned down before losing contact with them at 10:44 a.m., soon after which he was kidnapped by Hamas, according to the family forum. <\/p>\n
Less is known about Shimriz, but his family, like those of Talalka and Haim, had spoken publicly about their ordeal <\/p>\n
Haim\u2019s mother, Iris, had told Israel\u2019s Channel 11 earlier this week that she had faith her son would return even without raising her voice at the government. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome people think that if they don\u2019t shout, no one will bring their children back. I tell them: we can do it peacefully and through a respectful dialogue. The children will come back, I have no doubt,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s critics see the killings as proof that the Israeli government is more concerned with eradicating Hamas than it is with freeing the remaining hostages held by the group \u2013 the two key goals of the military operation in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Before news of three hostages\u2019 deaths broke, 132 captives were believed to still in Gaza, of whom 112 were thought to still be alive, Israeli authorities said Friday. <\/p>\n
Rallies were held on Friday night in Tel Aviv to demand immediate action to bring back the rest of those being held in Gaza. Demonstrators chanted \u201ceveryone now\u201d\u00a0and temporarily blocked a main road that runs through the city, during the three-hour demonstration. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to do everything can to bring back the hostages,\u201d one said \u201cWe are asking our government our cabinet to do the best they can to find more solutions because our friends and our family now <\/p>\n
Among the demonstrators was\u00a0Noam Tibon, a retired IDF major general who made headlines for personally driving south on October 7 to rescue his family from Hamas militants. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe clock is ticking, and it\u2019s against the hostages,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu has been under pressure domestically, both over his failure to anticipate the attacks and to bring the hostages home, but so far there seems little appetite to remove him with the conflict ongoing. <\/p>\n
While the killing of the three hostages has added urgency to the conversations, the source said, it\u2019s unclear if it incident will cost the Netanyahu politically or lead to any major changes in either government or the military. <\/p>\n
Speaking for the first time since the killings, the longtime Israeli prime minister on Saturday told the Israeli nation, \u201cWe are in a war for our existence.\u201d <\/p>\n
Netanyahu said the war \u201cmust continue until victory, despite the international pressure and despite the unbearable cost that the war is exacting from us in our fallen sons and daughters.\u201d <\/p>\n
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called their deaths \u201ca painful incident for every Israeli,\u201d while lawmaker Benny Gantz, a former rival of Netanyahu\u2019s and now part of a wartime coalition government, said his heart was \u201cshattered after learning about this tragedy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Both leaders indicated that the war would continue. Gallant said Israel \u201cmust remain resilient and continue operating,\u201d while Gantz said the country\u2019s \u201cresponsibility is to win the war, and part of that victory would be to return the hostages home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Israel is reeling from the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 admission that it shot and killed three Israelis in Gaza on Friday. The three had been taken hostage by Hamas during the group\u2019s October 7 terror attack. The IDF says the shooting was against its rules of engagement and that the soldiers involved would face disciplinary procedures. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}