Hostages wave a white flag before being shot

The killings of three Palestinian hostages during a cease-fire: The Israel Defense Forces, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths of the three captives — Yotam Haim, Samer Fuad El-Talalka and Alon Shamriz, all in their 20s — an “unbearable tragedy.”

Last month, Hamas released more than 100 hostages in a seven-day truce in exchange for about 300 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel. The three captives killed on Friday were among the more than 100 hostages believed still held by the Palestinian militant group.

Talalka, an Israeli Bedouin, was working with his father at a poultry hatchery in Kibbutz Nir Am on Oct. 7 when militants attacked, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. The group said that Haim and Shamriz were at their homes in Kfar Aza when they were kidnapped.

“The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists,” it said, adding that “Given the ongoing exchanges of fire, remaining in an active combat zone has inherent risks.”

Addam Yekutieli said that the grief and the pain just keeps on growing. It’s more of a sad sign that we’re on the wrong path.

The woman said she felt a lot of anger at the news. “I want more negotiations to free the remaining hostages and I think the military ought to eliminate threats to Israel before people die,” she said.

Thousands of Israelis massed at the military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv to protest the deaths of the hostages.

Families of the hostages keep up public pressure on Netanyahu’s government, because they want Israel’s first priority to be their safe return. Adding to that pressure in recent weeks, captives who were released during last month’s cease-fire have been speaking publicly about their time in captivity.

The Israeli military official said in the briefing with reporters that the hostages may have escaped or been abandoned by their captors.

The IDF inadvertently identified three kidnapped Israelis as a threat during the fighting. As a result, the IDF fired at them and they were killed,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, also known as the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli hostages who were killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday, emerged from a building shirtless and holding a makeshift white flag when they were shot, the military said.

“We consider this a grave blow to the already limited freedom of the press in Gaza and call on the army for a prompt investigation and explanation,” the FPA said.

The Foreign Press Association said veteran Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was killed in Gaza by fire from an Israeli drone at a school.

The deaths of three hostages reinforced for Adam Yekutieli that Israel needs to negotiate another cease-fire to release more of the captives.

The Israel Defense Forces in Tel Aviv after the Hamas-Consolidated-Zahriah incident, as the Israeli defense force tries to attack them

After the accident happened, a group of people gathered in the central part of Tel Aviv and walked through the city’s streets at night calling on others to join them.

But he criticized Netanyahu’s government, who he said was not interested in meeting with families of the hostages. Chen said the Israeli government needed to be active. “They need to put an offer on the table, including prisoners with blood on their hands,” he said, referring to the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, “… to get the hostages back alive.”

“We wanted to give them the gratitude of all the Jewish people [for] all they’ve done for us,” Chen said. “No other president was as willing to help us see our loved ones as he was to do that for our administration,” I said.

TEL AVIV, Israel — An investigation into the killing of three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza has found that the captives were shirtless and waving a white flag as Israel soldiers fired on them.

On Saturday afternoon at “hostages square” in central Tel Aviv, people gathered to hear from families of the captives. Ruby Chen, the father of hostage Itay Chen, 19, said he met last week with President Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior U.S. officials.

“This is a sad and painful incident for all of us,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces bore responsibility for everything that happened as he vowed full transparency as the military investigate how the tragedy unfolded.

The three men who were killed on Friday were taken from southern Israel, and both of them had been kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

The third hostage fled into the building, and a cry in Hebrew could be heard in the background. The battalion commander told them to keep their fire. The wounded hostage came back and later was shot to death, the military said.

The military said the soldiers were on high alert for Hamas attempts to ambush Israeli forces, probably in civilian clothes, as they patrol the area.

In a written statement describing the results of a preliminary inquiry, the Israeli military said its soldiers had been operating in Shejaiye, an area of Gaza City that has seen intense fighting. Earlier this week, at least nine Israeli soldiers were killed during battles in the neighborhood as the military sought to root out Palestinian militants there.

General Halevy: War for Our Lives, for Our enemies, and for the destruction of the Israel Defense Forces in a recent Gaza offensive

The military pressure is necessary for returning hostages and achieving victory over our enemies, he said.

But he made clear he would not scale back or halt the air and ground campaigns. He cast the conflict as “a war for our existence” and argued that maintaining military action was necessary to persuade Hamas to release more hostages.

“It is forbidden to shoot at those who raise a white flag and seek to surrender,” General Halevy said, adding, “The Israel Defense Forces, and myself as its commander, are responsible for what happened.”

Protesters in Tel Aviv and relatives of hostages expressed anger over the killings and pressed the government to focus on reaching another hostage-for-prisoners deal with Hamas rather than continuing a full-scale offensive in Gaza.

The troubling details of how they died have created widespread anguish in Israel and prompted renewed calls for another temporary truce and a deal to allow more hostages to be released. The three hostages had done everything they could to be understood as harmless, according to the Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevy.