Israel Says Its Soldiers Killed Israeli Hostages as They Held Up White Flag

The decision by two Israeli soldiers to open fire violated the military’s rules of engagement, a senior military official said, with the deaths labelled ‘tragic’.

Smoke billowing over northern Gaza amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Picture: AFP

The three Israeli hostages killed by Israeli forces Friday night were shot after they emerged shirtless from a building in northern Gaza, holding up a stick with a white cloth on it, Israeli military officials said Saturday.

The decision by two Israeli soldiers to open fire violated the military’s rules of engagement, a senior military official said.

The hostages – Yotam Haim, 28 years old; Samer Talalka, 25; and Alon Shamriz, 26 – were within “tens of metres” of the Israeli soldiers fighting in the Shujaiyeh area of Gaza, one of whom “felt threatened” and opened fire, the official said.

The IDF confirmed the death of Samar Fouad Talalka, 22, who was taken hostage to Gaza and mistakenly killed by the IDF on December 15.

Yotam Haim, 28.

Two of the hostages were killed immediately, and the third ran back inside the building. “A cry for help was heard in Hebrew, and immediately the battalion commander ordered a ceasefire,” the official said. But another soldier fired despite the order, killing the third hostage.

By stripping off their shirts, the three might have been trying to show the Israeli army that they weren’t armed or wearing explosive suicide vests.

“It is forbidden to shoot at someone who raises a white flag and seeks to surrender,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel’s senior military officer, said late Saturday. “However, this shooting was carried out during combat and under pressure.” The new details about the incident emerged as Israeli and Qatari officials met in Norway on Saturday in order to revive talks about the release of hostages held in Gaza in return for a cease-fire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, according to people familiar with the matter.

Alon Shamriz, 26.

The hostage deaths have intensified pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to take new steps to free the 129 remaining hostages. Israel’s war cabinet was set to meet later Saturday to discuss whether to officially resume hostage talks with mediators, the people said.

In Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, protesters called Saturday night for new efforts to secure the hostages’ release and for Netanyahu to step down.

In the wake of the killings, Israeli military commanders have reissued rules of engagement to troops and started an investigation of the incident, the official said. It will examine, among other issues, whether the hostages had been in a nearby building marked SOS.

The hostages might have escaped or been abandoned by their captors, the official said.

“There’s intense combat in the area,” the official added, referring to Shujaiyeh. “The forces are under intense pressure. A lot of deception going on in that area and very intense fighting.” Haim, a drummer, and Shamriz, who was about to start his studies in computer engineering, were from kibbutz Kfar Aza. Talalka, an Arab-Israeli from the town of Hura, was abducted from the chicken hatchery where he worked in kibbutz Nir Am.

In hopes of reviving talks on freeing the remaining hostages, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was due to meet David Barnea, director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in Oslo, people familiar with the matter said. They added that Barnea was also likely to meet with Egyptian officials.

Significant obstacles impede a resumption of negotiations on a new hostage deal, the people said, including disagreements over the possible terms within Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group whose Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the Gaza war.

The Oslo meeting would be the first between senior Israeli and Qatari officials since a weeklong truce brokered by Qatar and Egypt ended two weeks ago after Hamas failed to hand over a final group of female hostages and two young children.

Netanyahu’s office didn’t immediately respond Saturday to a request for comment on the Oslo meeting.

Hamas officials have blamed Israel for the collapse of the cease-fire on Dec. 1, saying the women hostages Israel expected to be released were soldiers and not part of the original cease-fire agreement. Remaining civilian female hostages are held by other militant groups in Gaza and are outside its control, Hamas officials have told negotiators.

The prospects for reviving a truce also depend on Hamas’s willingness to consider trading the U.S.-Israeli citizens, male Israelis and other categories of hostages Hamas considers its most valuable bargaining chips for obtaining large-scale Palestinian prisoner releases and a lasting cease-fire.

Qatar and Egypt have proposed new ideas to Hamas to try to obtain the release of more hostages, beyond the remaining women and children held captive. Among those ideas is releasing elderly and civilian men in exchange for some senior Palestinian prisoners, according to Egyptian officials.

Other ideas include a deal that could include the exchange of three senior Israeli officers kidnapped on Oct. 7 for 10 veteran Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader in the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction, who is serving five life sentences for the murder of Israelis in the early 2000s.

Hamas’s military wing, however, has been unresponsive to overtures made in recent days to try to revive concrete negotiations about the hostages.

Al Thani, the Qatari premier, said last week that mediation efforts to secure a new cease-fire and free more hostages held by Hamas were continuing, but he blamed Israeli strikes for hampering chances of a successful outcome.

“Our efforts as the state of Qatar along with our partners are continuing. We are not going to give up,” he said. “The continuation of the bombardment is just narrowing this window for us.” Israel’s military has had little success at freeing hostages through its military operations, but Israeli officials believe their continuing offensive targeting southern Gaza is putting pressure on Hamas to return to the negotiation table.

“The instructions I give to our negotiating teams are based on this pressure, and without it we have nothing,” Netanyahu said late Saturday.

Standing rules in the Israeli military prohibit soldiers from shooting people who no longer pose a danger, said retired Israeli general and former Mossad chief Danny Yatom.

“Whoever raises hands or waives a white flag, it’s prohibited to shoot them. Even if it’s a terrorist,” he said. But “everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.” Only two days before the hostages were killed, an ambush in the same area took the lives of nine Israeli soldiers in the Golani Brigade, including a battalion commander, and left four others wounded – losses that Yatom said could have made soldiers tense and prone to open fire against perceived threats.

Meanwhile, early Saturday a US Navy destroyer sailing in the Red Sea, the USS Carney, shot down 14 attack drones fired from areas in Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels, the U.S. military command in the region said in a statement. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the drones were attacking the U.S. ship or were heading beyond it to Israel.

Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza say their government isn’t doing enough to rescue those held by Hamas and that time is running out to repatriate their relatives who are still alive.

“It seems like President Biden is doing more to return the hostages than the government of Israel. The government of Israel should get a handle on itself,” said Ruby Chen, the American-Israeli father of hostage Itay.

More than 70 days into the war, Chen said the situation was no longer tolerable and that families were every day dreading news of the latest hostage death.

Hundreds of Israelis gathered at a central Tel Aviv square on Saturday to support calls for the government to step up efforts to release hostages from Gaza.

“I don’t ask them for anything, except to bring him back,” said Menashe Harush, whose family member Elkana Bohbot was kidnapped by militants from a musical festival. “Who am I to suggest something to them? They need to know what to do to bring him home in peace,” Harush added.

Some family members of Israeli hostages say they want their military to continue squeezing Hamas but emphasise the importance of a parallel diplomatic effort. “Mistakes can happen. But the manoeuvre has to continue” alongside negotiations, said Eli Shtivi, whose son Idan was kidnapped from the same festival.

– Abeer Ayyoub and Carrie Keller-Lynn contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal