Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza City after mistakenly identifying them as a threat, Israel’s military announced Friday.
The incident took place Friday in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, an area that has seen intense ground fighting between Israeli forces and the militant group Hamas since Israel launched its invasion in response to the Oct. 7 attacks.
“During the fighting in Shijaiyah, the IDF inadvertently identified three kidnapped Israelis as a threat. As a result, the IDF fired at them and they were killed,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, also known as the Israel Defense Forces.
“This is a sad and painful event for all of us, and the IDF bears responsibility for everything that happened,” he told reporters.
The circumstances in which the Israeli soldiers encountered the hostages, and why the soldiers believed the hostages were a threat, remain unclear.
An initial assessment suggested the hostages either “fled or were abandoned” by their captors during a skirmish, Hagari said. Asked whether the abductees had their hands up or spoke in Hebrew, Hagari responded only that the military’s investigation was still underway.
The issue of the hostages has roiled Israel since Oct. 7. Families of the hostages and missing have mounted major pressure on Israel’s political elite — pressure that has only grown in recent weeks as more hostages have spoken out about the conditions they experienced in captivity.
On Friday, news that three had been killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers prompted grief and outrage in Israel.
Soon after the announcement, which came after sundown on the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Israelis flocked to the military’s headquarters in TelAviv to protest the hostages’ deaths.
Protester Ella Vinokur, 30, said she felt “rage” at the news. The military operation to eliminate threats to Israel must come “second to people dying,” she said, her voice shaking as she called for more negotiations to free the remaining hostages.
“The grief and the pain, it just keeps accumulating,” said Addam Yekutieli, 37. “It’s even more of a tragic sign that the trajectory that we’re on — it’s not the right one.”
In a statement, Israel’s military expressed “deep remorse” over the incident.
”READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mistakenly-kill-hostages-gaza
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