By Tiffany Williams –
Three Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s October 7 terror attack, were shot and killed by Israel Defense Forces Friday in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya.
The three hostages have been identified as Yotam Haim, Alon Shimriz and Samer Talalka.
Talalka was 25, a member of Israel’s Bedouin community, the eldest of 10 children and he lived in the town of Hura.
Haim was 28, a gifted musician who played the drums for 20 years and performed with his band Persephore. On October 7th when Haim was kidnapped by Hamas, he was supposed to perform at a Metal Music Festival in Tel Aviv.
Haim and Shimriz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while Talalka was taken near Kibbutz Nir Am.
An IDF official on Saturday, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Haim, Shimriz and Talalka were killed while waving a white flag in violation of IDF rules of engagement.
The official said the three men emerged shirtless, waving their flag, from a building ten yards away from a group of Israeli troops. One soldier, the official said, felt threatened and opened fire, killing two of the men immediately.
One of the men, it is not yet known who, was wounded and ran back inside the building. The Israeli unit overheard a cry for help in Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his troops to stop shooting. However, there was another burst of gunfire. The third hostage died later.
IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari at a news conference Saturday said, “This is a mistake and a malfunction.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday was asked about the IDF killing three hostages, what the U.S.’s reaction was and how can the U.S. continue to say that Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties here and Kirby said, “It’s heartbreaking, it’s tragic, this news coming out of Gaza today about these hostages being killed in the conduct of a raid.”
Kirby added, “I want to be careful here not to speak to too many specifics because we don’t have perfect visibility on exactly how this operation unfolded and how this tragic mistake was made. But obviously, this is not an outcome that anybody wanted to see. And, you know, the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, of course also conveyed very similar sentiments about the gravity of the loss here and how unbearable it is.”
Kirby said he thought “The Israelis will certainly take a look at this, and I’m sure they will do the forensics to try to figure out how they got — how this happened. It’s certainly the way we would approach a situation like this too; we’d want to know as many answers as we could.”
As for the U.S. continuing to say that Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties, Kirby said, “I don’t think that, you know, we can necessarily make some sort of broad judgment about the specific circumstances here and what that says about the ability for them to be more surgical and more precise. I would add that, you know, when they went into north Gaza, they went in with a much smaller footprint, and they were able to conduct smaller-scale, smaller-unit operations than what they had originally planned to do. And we’ll let them — again, we’ll let them do the forensics here and try to figure out what happened. But right now — just one more second, and then I promise I’ll shut up. Right now, we’re mourning with the families that are getting the worst possible news a family can get. And I think we need to keep them foremost in mind.”
When asked if President Biden had spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu directly about the killing of these three hostages, Kirby said, “He has not had a conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu about this incident. He has been briefed by his national security team about it.”