The ‘mistaken’ killing of three Israeli hostages was a tragedy long foretold
Alon Shamriz, from left, Samer Al-Talalka and Yotam Haim, hostages shot by Israeli troops in December 2023
Sebastian Ben Daniel (John Brown) writes in +972 on 9 January 2024:
On December 15, Israeli soldiers in Gaza shot dead three hostages who were kidnapped during the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel: Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka, and Alon Shamriz. A sniper first shot toward them as they emerged — shirtless and waving a white flag — from a building more than 100 yards away, killing Talalka and Shamriz. Haim managed to escape, wounded, to a building nearby, and the soldiers pursued him. After 15 minutes, they convinced Haim to exit the building, promising that nothing will happen to him. When Haim finally came toward the soldiers, one of them executed him.
The discovery that the three men were Israeli citizens, and were thus killed “mistakenly,” caused outrage in Israel. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was quick to frame the incident as a case of soldiers not following the army’s rules of engagement: “The IDF doesn’t shoot a person who raises their hands,” he was filmed telling troops in Gaza two days later. The reality, however, is that this was a tragedy foretold, and a clear consequence of Israeli soldiers’ proclivity for shooting innocent Palestinians without facing repercussions.
The Israeli media mobilized to obscure the killing of the hostages, portraying it as an oversight that occurred because of the immense pressure of the war. Yet it wasn’t even a one-off for this war: we know of at least one other case from the past three months in which Israeli soldiers have executed people in Gaza after they surrendered, and it is possible that there have been more.
On Oct. 10, an IDF spokesperson released a video in which an officer recounts the killing of “four terrorists,” whose shirtless and lifeless bodies are seen on the ground next to him. The video goes on to show footage from before they were killed, in which the men appear to be on their knees and waving a white shirt before being shot at close range by Israeli soldiers.
Al Jazeera’s investigation into the event came to the same conclusion: the Palestinians were killed after surrendering. The officer in charge of the soldiers who carried out the executions was Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Luria — the same officer who would command the killing of the three Israeli hostages two months later.