The voices of three Israeli hostages who were accidentally killed by Israeli troops in Gaza were captured on a GoPro camera mounted on a military dog five days before they were shot, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The video, located\u00a0by\u00a0the IDF\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday, shows the recording took place during a military exchange between\u00a0Israeli\u00a0forces and Hamas militants at a site where the hostages\u00a0were\u00a0being held,\u00a0Rear Adm.\u00a0Daniel Hagari told a daily news briefing. The\u00a0dog\u00a0was\u00a0killed\u00a0in\u00a0the exchange. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can hear\u00a0voices, and when we analyzed the clip, we understood that\u00a0in\u00a0the audio we can hear the three\u00a0hostages, fully vocally identified,\u201d Hagari said. <\/p>\n
He did not provide details about what the three\u00a0hostages \u2013 Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka \u2013 could be heard saying. <\/p>\n
The militants who held the three\u00a0men were\u00a0killed\u00a0during the fighting, which appears to have allowed the captives to flee, Hagari said, citing an\u00a0initial\u00a0IDF analysis\u00a0of\u00a0the GoPro video. <\/p>\n
Israel is reeling from the\u00a0IDF\u2019s admission\u00a0that it killed the hostages\u00a0on\u00a0Friday. The three men had been taken captured by\u00a0Hamas during the group\u2019s October 7 terror attack. <\/p>\n
On\u00a0Saturday, an\u00a0IDF\u00a0official said the trio had emerged from a building tens\u00a0of meters away from a group\u00a0of\u00a0Israeli\u00a0troops. They\u00a0were\u00a0shirtless and\u00a0were\u00a0waving a white flag, according to the\u00a0official, who spoke to journalists\u00a0on\u00a0the condition\u00a0of anonymity to speak freely about an\u00a0ongoing\u00a0investigation. <\/p>\n
At least\u00a0one soldier felt threatened and opened fire, killing two\u00a0of\u00a0the men immediately, the official said. The third was wounded and ran back\u00a0inside the building. The\u00a0Israeli unit overheard a cry for help\u00a0in\u00a0Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his\u00a0troops\u00a0to stop\u00a0shooting. However, there was another burst\u00a0of\u00a0gunfire, according to the official. The third hostage died later. <\/p>\n
The news has been met with mixed reactions from the families of the killed hostages, with some expressing fury and others forgiveness. <\/p>\n
Avi Shimriz,\u00a0father\u00a0of\u00a0slain 26-year-old hostage Alon, accused Prime Minister Benjamin\u00a0Netanyahu\u00a0of\u00a0cowardice\u00a0in failing to call him or visit him to express his condolences. <\/p>\n
Speaking to Israel\u2019s Channel 13 News, Shimriz said: \u201cThe Prime Minister doesn\u2019t dare to make a call \u2013 he hasn\u2019t called \u2013 and he wouldn\u2019t come here,\u201d drawing a contrast with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who he said had called him twice. <\/p>\n
He expressed deep frustration over learning that\u00a0Israeli\u00a0soldiers had managed to kill the Hamas fighters holding the three\u00a0hostages and get so close to gathering intelligence that could possibly have saved them. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt demonstrates how big the miss is [\u2026] There is a screw-up here, a serious one,\u201d he said. \u201cThe shooter should not have opened fire, and if he is a proper fighter, he should have known that you only pull the trigger once you are certain it is a terrorist.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shimriz said commanders had failed to tell soldiers there could be\u00a0hostages in the area and that photographs\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0captives should have been circulated so soldiers might recognize them. <\/p>\n
But he acknowledged that troops in the field faced difficult circumstances. \u201cI cannot complain to our troops because they have encountered different situations where [Hamas] tried to ambush them and they suffered losses. I don\u2019t want another such incident on my conscience,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u00a0did visit Wednesday with the mother of another of\u00a0the slain\u00a0hostages, Iris Haim, who lost her son Yotam in the same incident. <\/p>\n
She sent a message to the\u00a0unit\u00a0involved\u00a0in the shooting, saying: \u201cEverything that happened is completely not your fault.\u201d <\/p>\n
In an audio message to the battalion, she said: \u201cI wanted to tell you that I love you very much and I embrace you from afar. I know that everything that happened is\u00a0completely\u00a0not your\u00a0fault,\u00a0it\u2019s nobody\u2019s\u00a0fault\u00a0\u2013 except the Hamas, may their name and memory be wiped\u00a0off the face\u00a0of\u00a0the Earth.\u201d <\/p>\n
Haim told the soldiers to stay safe, adding: \u201cWhat you\u2019re doing is the best possible thing in the world to help us, as the Jewish people, and we all need you to be safe and sound.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t hesitate for a single moment \u2013 if you see a terrorist, don\u2019t think that you have deliberately\u00a0killed\u00a0a\u00a0hostage, you need to protect\u00a0yourselves because that\u2019s the only way you would be able to protect us,\u201d she said, and invited the soldiers to visit her family. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see you with our own eyes and embrace you and tell you that what you have done \u2013 as painful as\u00a0it\u00a0is to say, and as sad as\u00a0it\u00a0is \u2013 was likely the right thing to do at that moment, and none\u00a0of\u00a0us are judging you or angry with you.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF has said the shooting was against its rules of engagement and that the soldiers involved would face disciplinary procedures. <\/p>\n
The Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya, where the killings took place, has seen fierce fighting in recent days. The IDF says it has\u00a0confronted ambush attempts and attacks that involved suicide bombers or assailants dressed in civilian clothes. <\/p>\n
Before news of the three hostages\u2019 deaths was announced, Israel had said Friday that they believe 132 captives remained in Gaza, of whom 112 were thought to still be alive. <\/p>\n\n
The voices of three Israeli hostages who were accidentally killed by Israeli troops in Gaza were captured on a GoPro camera mounted on a military dog five days before they were shot, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday. The video, located\u00a0by\u00a0the IDF\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday, shows the recording took place during a military <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13138","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\/13138","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=13138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}