When Israeli soldiers stormed a Gaza building on December 10 they ignored cries for “help” from three hostages who were being held there, according to an investigation conducted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) published on Thursday.
The soldiers also heard “hostages” shouting in Hebrew on December 10 but felt that it was a “terrorist deception attempt” by Hamas terrorists to lure the soldiers into the building. The incident occurred in the Gaza City district of Shejaiya, which witnessed heavy warfare this month.
The soldiers believed that the building was rigged with explosives hence the exited it and killed five Hamas terrorists who were trying to escape. The probe said the hostages may have also fled the building.
The probe said that on December 15 Israeli soldiers shot the hostages after mistakenly identifying them as a threat. It said that two of them were killed instantly and the third hostage fled but soldiers were ordered to hold fire in order to identify him.
Israeli commanders heard the third hostage crying for help and shouting “they’re shooting at me” and asked the hostage to advance towards the soldiers. But two soldiers said they did not hear the commands because of “noise” from a nearby tank and shot the hostage dead. The hostages were shirtless and one of them was carrying a white flag.
The probe also revealed that a day before their death, on December 14, an army drone had identified signs of “SOS” and “help, three hostages” on a building close to where the three hostages were shot.
The army “failed in its mission to rescue the hostages in this event,” army chief Herzi Halevi said in a statement published along with the report of the investigation. The three fatalities “could have been prevented”, he added.
Soon after the killings of the hostages were announced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it “broke my heart” and “broke the whole nation’s heart”.
Israel has been mourning the deaths of the hostages identified as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa.
The killings of the three men, all in their twenties, have sparked protests in Tel Aviv, where demonstrators demanded that the authorities come up with a new plan to bring home the remaining 129 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.
About 250 people were taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7 attacks in Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas and bring back the hostages, Israel launched a massive military offensive against the Palestinian Islamist movement that has left much of Gaza in ruins.
The territory’s Hamas government says the war has killed at least 21,320 people, mostly women and children.
(with inputs from AFP)
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