The three hostages were naked from the waist up, shouting for help in Hebrew and displaying a homemade white flag to make it clear they would surrender. Still, the Israeli army saw them as a threat and shot them dead in northern Gaza on Friday, shouting “terrorists!” in one of the darkest incidents on the Israeli side of the war in the Palestinian enclave. It also comes at a time of particular discontent among the families of the nearly 130 hostages remaining in Gaza, some of whom are already dead because of what they say is no commitment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to bring them back. For this reason, they have demanded that they return “alive and not in sacks,” like the last three, after a meeting of families that took place this Saturday in Tel Aviv, after which they delivered a message to the War Cabinet chaired by Netanyahu an offer. Immediate hostage exchange for Palestinian prisoners, even “with blood on their hands.”
The Israeli prime minister defended his way of dealing with the war during a press conference on Saturday evening. “Military pressure is necessary both for the return of the hostages and for the victory over our enemy,” he said in an appearance with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who claimed responsibility for the deaths of the three hostages.
Amid the scandal surrounding the three dead hostages, the Israeli authorities are trying to restart negotiations with greater zeal than in previous days. They do this through internal and external meetings at the highest levels, such as the meeting that the head of the Mossad (Israeli foreign spy agency), David Barnea, will hold in Oslo, Norway, with the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. When asked, Netanyahu did not want to talk about it in order not to give Hamas any information.
“Alon was my friend,” Matan Sobol, 26, explains sadly to EL PAÍS, referring to Alon Shamriz, one of these three hostages. “It was terrible,” he adds, without wanting to apportion blame, but revealing the idea in the air that soldiers shoot at everything that moves in Gaza, even at the risk of causing deaths like the three come. Along with Shamriz, the military killed Yotam Haim, both kidnapped on October 7 at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Al-Talalka, who was captured at neighboring Kibbutz Nir Am. The army admitted this week that more than 10% of soldiers there are dying in Gaza doing so through friendly fire.
“The government is not talking to the families,” denounced Rubi Chen, who was received by President Joe Biden in the United States last week along with other relatives. After his return, he called the Israeli government and the government told him they would not speak to the family, according to his statement. “I thought it was a joke,” Chen, the father of a kidnapped man and one of the speakers who made statements this Saturday at the so-called Square of Hostages and Missing Persons in Tel Aviv, added late Saturday evening to his Expressing discomfort at the meeting of the families and sympathizers of the hostages.
“We ask the War Cabinet to talk to the families and not tell us that they are waiting for an offer from the US or a call from someone else. “The Israeli government must reactivate itself and put offers on the table, including prisoners with blood on their hands, put the best offer on the table to make the hostages alive, alive,” he stressed. “We don’t want them in bags again. This requires you to move now,” Chen added, raising his voice and showing an hourglass. Shortly afterwards it was announced that they would be received that same Saturday evening by two cabinet members, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Rubi Chen, one of the spokesmen for the hostage families, this Saturday in Tel Aviv.Luis de Vega
Friday's incident began after a soldier observed the three “suspects” leaving a building a few dozen meters away, according to local press sources close to the investigation. That soldier, according to the same story, believed they were members of Hamas trying to set a trap and immediately opened fire while shouting “Terrorists!” to notify other colleagues in the area. Two died from this uniformed man's shots and a third attempted to return to the wounded building while the battalion chief ordered to cease fire. The wounded man then began asking for help in Hebrew and went back outside when another soldier shot him. Although the two soldiers violated protocols, the army recalls that they have been subjected to several attempted ambushes and attacks by suspected suicide bombers in recent days.
Sobol has not only lost his friend Alon in the last few hours. He holds a sign with the picture of his cousins Ziv and Gali Berman, both 26, who are still being kidnapped in Gaza. “From the messages we received from the family, we know that they waved the white flag and that they saw her as a threat… I have no doubt that the army is doing the hardest work, they are trying by all means possible to stop them “But we ask the government to help us families bring them back,” he claims during a break in the meeting.
Israel is now accelerating meetings to negotiate a new ceasefire that will make it easier to release hostages again. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held a meeting that included the head of the Mossad as well as heads of the military and intelligence “focused on efforts to repatriate the hostages,” a Defense Ministry statement said.
“Whoever had to save her didn’t make it”
Matan Sobol, without referring to the ongoing contacts, wants to assume that these three deaths will serve to change the approach on the ground or negotiate a new ceasefire, but at the same time recognizes that this has happened “Can in any battle or war will happen. Those who had to save them did not succeed, but I insist that everything can change in just a few seconds.” The war, which continues with fierce fighting and bombings across the Gaza Strip, began with the killing of about 1,200 people Hamas militiamen on Israeli territory on October 7, whose military response in the Gaza Strip has now resulted in more than 19,000 deaths.
These three deaths come at a time when families are increasingly critical of the government and calling for a ceasefire after attacks resumed at a very high intensity not only in the north but also in the south of the Gaza Strip following last week's ceasefire in November . This cessation of hostilities allowed the exchange of 105 hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
“We knew this was going to happen because they have hostages everywhere and when the Hamas people are in danger they either kill them or abandon them,” said Guy Levi, a 66-year-old sociologist and educator who accompanied some close friends. from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the kibbutz attacked by Hamas, under one of the tents set up in the renamed square. “That's why we are calling for a ceasefire, but the government prefers to keep fighting because it cares more about politics than getting them out,” he added. “The hostages are not on the agenda of the government, which only understands violence and military power. “The culture of Israel is the military culture,” he complains as he looks at the photos of two kidnapped friends printed on his T-shirt.
In the square, which has been transformed over the weeks into a large protest and memorial installation, citizens are using the weekend to get closer to the hundreds of images that remember the people still kidnapped in Gaza, already released and not returning alive . A piano plays, accompanied by the voice of a young woman, while stalls offer T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts, badges, bracelets and all sorts of items to keep alive the authorities' demand to bring them back. Hundreds of people walk around and take photos with their cell phones.
Under the tent, Guy Levi openly criticizes the policies of the Netanyahu-led government, which, in his opinion, cares more about the “settler fascists” than those “left behind in the Gaza Strip.” He remembers October 7th full of anger and shows the agenda for that day on the digital calendar on his cell phone. At six in the afternoon, Kibbutz Nahal Oz celebrated its 70th anniversary with a pool party. The event, barely half a kilometer from the border fence that separates this community from Gaza, was communicated and approved by Israeli military officials, he says indignantly. “I was spared from being there that morning because my mother died in August,” Levi adds with a grimace, defining his view of the conflict in the two month-long missions he conducted in Lebanon in 1982. This helped him break away from a course of action that is often considered “immoral.” “The army killed friends of mine in the West Bank,” he notes.
The accidental death of the three hostages occurred in the Shuhaiya district of Gaza City, very close to where the army suffered an ambush this week in which it lost nine of its men. The road network, where fighting is almost always close-quarters, is a well-known bastion of Palestinian armed resistance and was already the scene of serious complications for Israeli troops in the 2014 war. “My blood is boiling,” says Guy Levi. And he concludes: “The happiest day will not be when Netanyahu resigns, no.” It will be when they bury him.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_