Sad News: 3 Israelis Hostages Mistakenly Killed in Gaza Conflict by Israeli Forces
3 Israelis sadly lost in Gaza. Mistaken shooting by Israeli forces. A heartbreaking incident in the ongoing conflict.
The Israeli military (IDF) admitted they made a big mistake – they accidentally shot and killed three Israeli hostages in a place called Shijaiyah in Gaza City. This happened during a time when there's a lot of fighting between the Israeli soldiers and the Hamas group in that area.
The mix-up happened while a person from the United States was trying to tell the Israeli leaders to calm down their fight sooner than later. The three hostages, Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Al-Talalka, 25, and Alon Shamriz, 26, were taken from places close to the Gaza border. The soldiers thought these guys were a danger and shot them by accident.
The name of the third hostage mistakenly killed during the incident, was approved for publication by his family.
Alon Shamriz, kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7. — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 15, 2023
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army's top talker, said they are really sorry about what happened, and they're checking everything to understand how this mistake occurred. They think the hostages might have run away from the people who took them or got left behind, ending up in the middle of the fighting.
The families of these three guys have been trying hard to get the government to do more and bring them back home. People have been doing protests in support of the hostages, like when hundreds of them blocked a big road in Tel Aviv on Friday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called this a "very sad tragedy" and promised they would try their very best to bring all the hostages home safely. The government has been saying again and again that freeing the hostages is the most important thing for them in this fight with Hamas.
In another part of Gaza, a strike by Israeli forces caused the death of a journalist named Samer Abu Daqqa, and another journalist, Wael Dahdouh, got hurt. They were reporting from a school that got hit before when a drone attacked them.
This is a tough time in Gaza. Lots of people had to leave their homes because of the fighting, and more than 18,700 Palestinians have died, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. The U.S. is a bit worried about too many regular people getting hurt, but they're still supporting Israel with weapons and talking support.
The fight has been going on for seven weeks, with lots of bombings and shooting. Parts of northern Gaza are almost destroyed. Even though Hamas is still fighting back, many people in Israel think this fight is necessary to make sure what happened in 2014 doesn't happen again.
It's a tricky situation, and people are talking about what happens next after the fighting stops. The U.S. wants things to calm down soon, but it might take a few months to end the Hamas group completely, says the Israeli Defense Minister. There are talks about what to do with Gaza after all of this, but it's not easy because different people want different things.
The whole thing is very sad, and everyone hopes for peace soon.
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