“An unbearable tragedy”, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a “tragic error” and “heartbreaking” news for the White House. The Israeli army announced the death, Friday, December 15, of three Israeli hostages “mistakenly identified” as a “threat” by its own men, in Chadjaya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. “The soldiers then opened fire in their direction and they were killed,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari told television, adding that the hostages had “either escaped or had been abandoned” by their captors.
The victims are Yotam Haim, 28, and Samer Al-Talalqa, 25, both kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Am during the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, an army statement said . The third hostage killed was Alon Lulu Shamriz, 26, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, according to the same source. Their bodies were repatriated to Israel.
The army stressed that they died “in an active combat zone” in which its soldiers have been waging “a continuous battle for several days” against Hamas fighters. She expressed her “deep regrets” to the families, stressing that her mission was to “locate the missing and bring the hostages home.” “The entire State of Israel is in mourning,” declared Benjamin Netanyahu in the evening.
John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said the United States expected Israel to conduct an investigation to better understand the circumstances that led Israeli troops to mistakenly kill the captives. He added that at present too little was known to “make a general judgment on the specific circumstances of the incident.”
“Every day a hostage dies.”
These deaths bring to twenty-two the number of hostages confirmed dead, out of the approximately 250 people forcibly taken by Hamas to the Gaza Strip on October 7, which left some 1,140 dead, the majority of them civilians, according to authorities. Of those captured, 110 were released, and 129 remain captive without it being possible to know if they are alive.
Shortly after the Israeli army's announcement, families of hostages and their supporters marched with photos of captives in front of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to demand an immediate agreement for their release. “Every day a hostage dies,” read one poster, while an Israeli flag placed in the street was sprayed with red paint suggesting blood.
“The only way to free the living hostages is through negotiation,” Motti Direktor, a 66-year-old protester, said at the scene. “We're here after an overwhelming evening, and I'm scared to death. We demand a deal now,” said Merav Svirsky, whose brother is hostage in Gaza.
Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas and launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip. Nearly 18,800 people were killed by Israeli bombings, according to the health ministry of Hamas, which rules Gaza. Family associations are calling for a ceasefire until all the hostages have been released, fearing that they will be killed by their captors or collateral victims of the fighting.
A truce agreement obtained through mediation by Qatar allowed at the end of November a one-week break in the fighting, the release of around a hundred hostages held by Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel, as well as the delivery of emergency humanitarian aid.
A meeting planned between Mossad and Qatar
Shortly after the announcement of the death of the three hostages, the Axios news site announced that David Barnea, the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign secret service, is to meet this weekend with the Qatari Prime Minister, Mohammed Ben Abderrahmane Al -Thani. The meeting is planned in Europe and must concern a second phase of truce in order to allow further releases of hostages, continues Axios without specifying the location of this meeting or the number of people who could be released in this way.
A week ago, the Israeli army acknowledged the failure of an operation to free hostages, during which two soldiers were seriously injured. Hamas, for its part, claimed that an Israeli hostage, Sahar Baruch, 25, had died during this operation, broadcasting images of his remains. His family confirmed that it was indeed the young man.
If Israel is in mourning on Saturday, Qatar and Gaza are also in mourning after the death of Samer Abou Daqqa, an Al-Jazeera cameraman killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, according to the channel Qatar. Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Gaza, Waël Dahdouh, who lost his wife and two of his children at the start of the war, was injured in the arm by shrapnel and transferred to a hospital in Khan Younes. “We were reporting, we had filmed, we were finished and we were with the civil defense but as we were coming back, they hit us with a missile,” he told Agence France-Presse.
More than 60 journalists and media workers have died since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
