Israel Defence Forces says it killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza after identification mistake

The Israeli army said on Friday that its soldiers mistakenly shot and killed three hostages who had escaped from their Hamas captives.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said it is examining the details of the incident which occurred amid fierce fighting in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Sejaiya.

The soldiers mistakenly identified the three Israelis as a threat and opened fire on them, said the army’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

The three hostages were identified as three young men who had been abducted from Israeli communities near the Gaza border - Yotam Haim (28) who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar, Samer Al-Talalka (25) who was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Am, and Alon Shamriz (26), who was taken from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. All were abducted by Hamas on October 7th, it said.

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A statement from the military said that during an intense battle in Gaza it “identified three Israeli hostages as a threat”. “As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed.”

Israel’s prime minister Benjanmin Netanyahu called their deaths an “unbearable tragedy” vowing to continue “with a supreme effort to return all the hostages home safely.”

With the fighting continuing, United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan, after two days of talks in Israel, said Washington agrees that the fight against Hamas will take months, but he added that it will move to a new phase, focused on precise targeting of the Hamas leadership and on intelligence-driven operations.

It is expected that the new phase will begin after Israel completes its military activity in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, some time in January.

Mr Sullivan also said that the Israeli government has indicated it does not have long-term plans to occupy Gaza.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told Mr Sullivan that the US should force Israel to stop the fighting. He stressed that the Gaza Strip is “an integral part of the Palestinian state, and the Palestinian Authority will not co-operate with any plan aimed at separating the Strip from the West Bank.

As the fighting continues in Gaza, militants are still firing rockets into Israel, albeit with less frequency. Sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Friday for the first time since the end of October as two rockets were intercepted.

Meanwhile, Israel said it has recovered the bodies of three more hostages, including two soldiers, from Gaza. Some 131 hostages remain in Hamas captivity and relatives plan to start a hunger strike on Saturday night as part of their campaign to press the government to reach an agreement for another release.

In southern Gaza, the Al Jazeera television network said an Israeli strike on Friday in the city of Khan Younis killed cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and wounded its chief correspondent in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh. The two were reporting at a school that had been hit by an earlier airstrike when a drone launched a second strike, the network said.

Speaking from a hospital bed, Mr Dahdouh told the network that he managed to walk to an ambulance. But Mr Abu Daqqa lay bleeding in the school and died hours later.

An ambulance tried to reach the school to evacuate him but had to turn back because roads were blocked by the rubble of destroyed houses, it said.

Mr Dahdouh, a veteran of covering Israel-Gaza wars whose wife and children were killed by an Israeli strike earlier in the war, was wounded by shrapnel in his right arm.

Before Mr Abu Daqqa’s death, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported at least 63 journalists killed in the war, including 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 18,600 Palestinians have been killed in the war which started on October 7th when 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped in a Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Israel insists on checking all the aid trucks to ensure Hamas is not smuggling in weapons and equipment. An Israeli government statement said the move followed on from Israel’s commitment under the previous hostage release agreement to allow 200 lorries a day into Gaza bringing food and humanitarian aid. The Rafah crossing only has the capacity to process 100 trucks each day.

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Earlier this week, Israel opened the Kerem Shalom crossing for the examination of humanitarian aid entering Gaza but the lorries then drove back to Rafah before crossing into Gaza. Now they will be able to cross directly into Gaza.

Mr Sullivan said Washington welcomes the “significant step’, adding that Washington “remains committed to expanding and sustaining the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza”.

The attempt by Yemen-based Houthis to disrupt maritime traffic at the southern tip of the Red Sea received a significant boost on Friday when Maersk, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, announced it is pausing all container shipments through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, meaning the ships will have to navigate around Africa.

The development followed more Houthi missile attacks on ships which they said were heading to Israel. A multinational naval coalition has been formed to protect shipping and shoot down missiles and drones. - Additional reporting: AP