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The Israeli army misidentified shirtless male hostages waving a white flag in Gaza and shot all three in violation of its rules of engagement, a military official said Saturday.
The killing of Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka, who are believed to have escaped from Hamas captivity, is being investigated by the Israeli Defense Forces.
The hostages were only “tens of meters” from Israeli positions, the official said. An Israeli soldier mistook them for Hamas fighters trying to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap and thought they were “terrorists,” the military official said.
Two were killed instantly and the third died as he ran for cover and called for help in Hebrew. A military official said that the local commander issued a ceasefire order during the shooting, which the soldiers did not obey.
Their bodies were examined only because one of the hostages had a “Western appearance,” media outlet Ynet reported, leading to the conclusion that the dead were hostages. Haim, 28, had pale skin and reddish-brown hair.
The killing of the hostages came after Palestinian human rights groups documented several cases in which Gaza civilians waving white flags were shot by Israeli soldiers.
Hamas said a handful more hostages were killed in Israel's relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which President Joe Biden last week described as “indiscriminate.” Israel has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in its ground invasion and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials.
The families of around 130 hostages still being held by Hamas plan to protest in Tel Aviv later on Saturday to reiterate their demands for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin negotiations to secure the release of their relatives. The government claims that a military weakening of Hamas would lead to the release of the hostages.
A recently released hostage, Raz Ben-Ami, said the government must immediately initiate another round of prisoner-for-hostage swaps.
“Ten days ago I warned cabinet members that the fighting could harm the hostages,” she said. “I pleaded with them and warned them that the fighting could harm the hostages. Unfortunately I was right.”
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said he took responsibility for their deaths and that while Israeli soldiers in Gaza were operating under difficult and unpredictable conditions, the decision to open fire on shirtless men carrying a white flag was against the violate current rules of engagement.
“But these shots were fired in combat and under pressure,” he said. “In an instant, the complexity of our just war in Gaza was revealed.”
Israel stepped up military operations on the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with both bombings and gun battles reported in the towns of Shejaiya and Khan Younis. An Al Jazeera cameraman was killed and the correspondent was injured in a drone strike on a school used as a shelter for displaced people in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Israeli government, Hamas took about 240 people hostage on October 7 in a cross-border raid in Israel that killed 1,200 people. Dozens were released during a Qatar-brokered swap in which for every Israeli hostage released – mostly women and children – three Palestinian prisoners were released in Israeli prisons.
This exchange took place within the framework of a ceasefire that allowed humanitarian aid to flow into the besieged enclave. Most of the coastal strip's 2.3 million residents have been displaced to southern Gaza, where their tent cities and UN shelters have little access to clean water, food or medicine.
David Barnea, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, met Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe on Friday evening to revive talks on a possible deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Hamas has classified most of the remaining hostages as Israeli soldiers.
Netanyahu said Saturday that the first round of hostage releases only occurred because of Israel's military pressure on Hamas and vowed to continue the war to help free the remaining hostages. “The instruction I give to the negotiating team is based on this pressure, without which we have nothing,” he said.
Hamas has said that their release would require Israel to release many, if not all, of the more than 7,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
The talks were positive but progress was slow, a person briefed on the talks said. It is the first time since December 2 that Barnea has met the Qatari prime minister.