Israel’s Chief of General Staff, Herzi Halevi, claimed responsibility for the killing of three hostages who were killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Friday.
The hostages were killed even though they were waving a makeshift white flag and were unarmed.
“It is forbidden to shoot at those who raise the white flag and ask to surrender. What was done is a violation of the rules of service,” Halevi said, but added that the shooting was during combat and under stressful circumstances, Israeli media reported.
The families of the hostages detained in the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, appealed to the Government of Israel to end the fighting and negotiations for their release more than two months after the war with Hamas began.
“We’re just pulling out dead bodies. We’re asking you to stop the fighting and start negotiations,” said Noam Peri, the daughter of an Israeli detained in Gaza at a gathering of hostage families in Tel Aviv, AFP reports.
Israeli soldiers mistakenly killed half-naked civilians in the Gaza Strip, their compatriots – escaped hostages – despite the unfortunate people waving a white flag, an Israeli military official admitted today.
Outrage over the killing can be expected to increase pressure on the Israeli government to renew negotiations with Hamas, brokered by Qatar, to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Hamas has conditioned the further release of the hostages on a halt to Israeli airstrikes and a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing for 11 weeks.
The circumstances under which the hostages were killed further raise questions about the actions of Israeli ground forces.
An anonymous military official said at a press briefing that most likely the killed civilians were previously left behind by their captors or they managed to escape from them.
He assessed that the soldiers acted “against the rules of the service” and said that the case will be investigated at the highest level.
Three young people were killed on Friday in the Shejaia neighborhood of Gaza City, where fierce fighting has been going on with Hamas extremists for the past few days.
They were among 240 people abducted during an attack by Palestinian extremists, led by Hamas, in southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Those attacks provoked a fierce response by the Israeli army and a war in the Palestinian-populated Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of protesters blocked a major highway in Tel Aviv late last night in an impromptu demonstration, demanding the return of the hostages.
The suffering of the hostages has dominated public discourse in Israel since the war began on October 7. Their families are waging a strong public campaign urging the government to do more to free them.
A military official said the three hostages got out of a building near the positions of Israeli soldiers. They waved a white flag and were shirtless, perhaps in an effort to signal that they were not a threat. Two were killed instantly, and the third ran back into the building, shouting for help in Hebrew. The commander ordered a ceasefire, but a third hostage was also killed in the shootout, the official said.
Israeli media published more detailed reports.
The newspaper “Yedioth Ahronoth” stated that an investigation into the incident showed that a sniper identified the three hostages as suspicious persons when they left the building even though they were unarmed and killed two of them. The soldiers followed the third when he ran into a building and hid. They shouted at him to get out and at least one soldier shot at him when he appeared on the stairs, the newspaper said.
Israel’s Haaretz published a similar report based on a preliminary investigation and said soldiers who followed the third hostage into the building believed he was a member of Hamas and was trying to lure them into a trap.
More than 18,700 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry said, before a communications blackout completely halted phone and internet services in the Palestinian enclave.
It is feared that thousands more people are buried under the rubble.
In the latest balance, it is not stated how many women and children were among the dead, but previously it was constantly announced that they made up two thirds of the victims.
