Israeli D.Forces Were Near The Hostages Days Before They Were Shot
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters/Palestinians at the site of a strike in the southern Gaza City of Rafah on Wednesday.
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At the funeral of Alon Shamriz, one of the hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, in Shefayim on Sunday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Israel’s military said it has learned that its forces had come close to finding three hostages before they were mistakenly killed by Israeli troops in Gaza last week, an episode that has roiled the country and raised pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quickly reach a deal to free Hamas’s remaining captives.
The news was the latest to emerge since the fatal shooting of the three hostages, who were unarmed and bearing a makeshift white flag. Israel’s military has been quick in disclosing details of the shooting, which it said violated its rules of engagement.
In a briefing late Wednesday, Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said that five days before the deadly hostage shooting, Israeli forces had been patrolling the area where they now know that the hostages were held.
They engaged in a firefight with Palestinian militants and sent a combat dog equipped with a Go-Pro camera into a building for reconnaissance. The military said Palestinian fighters shot the dog, and the Israeli soldiers prevailed in the fight, killing the militants.
But it turns out, the military has since learned, that the dog’s Go-Pro continued to record, capturing the voices of the three young hostages — Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalka — who had been abducted, alongside roughly 240 others, during Hamas’s Oct. 7 surprise attack. The footage was apparently left unchecked at the time, the Israeli military said, and it was unclear when the military retrieved the camera.
After their captors were killed, the three hostages fled the building, Admiral Hagari said. It was not clear where they were over the next five days, before they were ultimately spotted by Israeli troops, near a building a kilometer away.
The Israeli troops were patrolling that area in Gaza City, in a neighborhood that had seen deadly ambushes in recent days. The soldiers were on high alert for attempts by Hamas to ambush Israeli forces, possibly in civilian clothes, the military said.
The three young hostages, shirtless and holding the makeshift white flag, exited a nearby building, the Israeli military said, citing a preliminary investigation. One of the Israeli soldiers, mistaking them for a threat, opened fire, killing two of them and wounding the third, according to the military.
The third hostage fled into the building, from which a cry in Hebrew for help could be heard. The battalion commander ordered the forces to hold their fire. But the wounded hostage later re-emerged, after which he was fatally shot, the military said.
Admiral Hagari pledged that the Israeli military would continue to investigate the shooting, which the military’s chief of staff called a clear violation of the open-fire policy. He added that the military was investigating why the Go-Pro footage was not immediately reviewed.
“We will present all the material to the families. We owe the families the truth and the investigation,” Admiral Hagari said. The military would “do everything to ensure that this never happens again,” he added.
Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam, released a recorded message on Wednesday in which she told the soldiers involved in her son’s death that she blamed no one except for Hamas.
“We want to see you with our own eyes and embrace you,” said Ms. Haim, in an English translation put out by Israel’s government press office. “None of us are judging you or angry with you,” she added.
After their deaths, many in Israel have demanded that Mr. Netanyahu do more to secure the release of the more than 100 hostages, mostly men, who are still held in Gaza.
That includes declaring a pause in fighting, or a cease-fire, like the one that ended on Dec. 1. During that halt, Hamas released over 80 Israeli hostages and 24 foreign nationals, while Israel released some 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, seen earlier this month, is able to provide little more than first aid, the head of the World Health Organization said.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Northern Gaza has no more functioning hospitals, the director general of the World Health Organization has said, describing scenes of horror witnessed by aid workers in the ruins of two partially destroyed medical facilities.
Aid workers who visited Al-Ahli and Al-Shifa hospitals on Wednesday during a rare humanitarian mission to deliver supplies “struggled to describe the immense impact recent attacks have had on these health facilities,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. chief, said in a statement posted to social media.
At Al-Ahli, the aid workers found rows of dead bodies lined up outside the hospital, while severely injured civilians writhed in pain on the floor and the pews of the chapel inside of it, he said.
In a video that Dr. Tedros posted to social media, a member of the medical mission stands inside the chapel, with injured people and crucifixes on the wall visible behind him.
“There are patients here who have been injured for more than a month and have had no surgery; there are patients who have been operated on and are now getting post-operative infections because the hospital doesn’t have sufficient antibiotics,” the aid worker in the video, Sean Casey, says.
“They are suffering enormously here,” he adds. “This is a completely unacceptable situation.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs took part in the mission, which it said was only the third humanitarian convoy to reach northern Gaza since a pause in fighting ended on Dec. 1 because of “the ongoing hostilities.”
A spokeswoman for the Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the W.H.O.’s claims. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centers, allegations that Hamas and medical staff have denied. The Israeli military says it has uncovered tunnels and weapons, including at Al-Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital complex, that it considers proof of its allegations.
Diplomats at the United Nations Security Council have been in intense negotiations this week over a resolution calling for a halt in fighting in the war in Gaza and a major increase aid deliveries. The United States has delayed the vote, according to diplomats, and has been the only member of the Security Council to block demands for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, vetoing two such resolutions.
Dr. Tedros said a cease-fire was necessary “to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing other essential care, and, above all, to stop the bloodshed and death.”
Both hospitals visited by the team of aid workers on Wednesday are unable to provide much more than first aid — which means there are no working hospitals left in northern Gaza, he said. And only a few doctors and nurses remain at Al-Ahli to provide limited care to severely injured people in dire need of surgery and other complex procedures, he added.
Dr. Tedros said aid workers found a courtyard filled with bodies lined up in rows outside Al-Ahli because staff members were unable to leave the hospital to safely bury them. Aid workers also encountered 80 injured people, including older people and young children, sheltering in the hospital’s chapel and orthopedics department, he added.
“They included a 10-year old girl who lost her leg and had no family left to care for her, and an older man awaiting surgery for a gun wound to the chest he may never get, whose entire family had been killed,” said Dr. Tedros.
On Thursday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that only nine of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were even “partially functional.”
All of those were located in southern Gaza, which has been flooded in recent weeks with hundreds of thousands of displaced people fleeing violence, and were operating at three times their normal capacity, the U.N. said in a statement.
Israeli soldiers and international journalists exited a part of the Hamas tunnel network during an escorted tour earlier this month. The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it found additional tunnels in the center of Gaza City.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
The Israeli military on Wednesday said it had “secured control” of an area in the center of Gaza City, including Palestine Square, where Hamas government and military leaders have been operating and living, uncovering “a large network of tunnels” and weapons.
“This complex, both above and below ground, was a center of power for Hamas’ military and political wings,” the Israeli military said in a statement. It added that Hamas military infrastructure “was located in the direct vicinity of commercial stores, government buildings, civilian residences, and a designated school for deaf children.”
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