Shirtless, raising white flags, and calling for help… Israel kills three of its detainees in Gaza

Gaza (QNN)- Israel’s military Friday announced it killed three Israeli prisoners in its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip. The IOF said the targeting of the settlers was by mistake.

The rare Israeli admission came shortly following an announcement by Hamas that the spokesperson for its military wing, Abu Ubaida, will give an “important speech”. Such speeches usually provide information about Israeli failures that it seeks to hide. However, it was notable that Abu Ubaida’s speech this time did not contain information of more important value than in his usual speeches, which raised speculations that the resistance movement’s announcement about the speech was a trap to ambush the Israeli military into confessing.

The spokesperson for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, said they killed three prisoners in Gaza. He added that they were “mistakenly identified as a threat” during the Israeli forces’ ground invasion into the Al-Shejayia neighbourhood, one of the overpopulated places in the city of Gaza.

The three Israeli prisoners were shirtless, holding a stick with a white cloth on it, and shouting in Hebrew “Help us”, when Israeli soldiers saw them a few meters away as a threat and shot them dead, according to an Israeli investigation.

On the other hand, Al Qassam Brigades stated Saturday that “the enemy continues to gamble with the lives of its captured soldiers held by the resistance, indifferent to their families’ feelings.”

“Yesterday, it deliberately executed three of them, choosing to kill them rather than release them. This is the same blatant criminal behavior it has practiced and continues to practice against its captives in Gaza, in a desperate attempt to rid itself of the burden of this file and its well-known implications”, it added., revealing that the Israeli army favoured applying the Hannibal directive.

Al Jazeera quoted an Israeli military officer as saying that finding the detainees “moving freely in the streets of Gaza was a scenario that the Israeli military did not expect”. Meanwhile, the Al-Shejayia neighbourhood has witnessed massive destruction due to the Israeli ongoing bombardments.

According to Yoav Zitun, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, IOF soldiers checked the bodies of the detainees only because one of the Israeli prisoners had a Western appearance.

Demonstrations in Tel-Aviv broke down on Friday night against the Netanyahu government and the IOF speech. The families of the detainees and supporters demanded their government to agree on another prisoner exchange deal with Hamas. Meanwhile, Ali Gottlieb, a member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset), criticized the Israeli army for revealing the truth and issuing such a “sad and tragic announcement,” highlighting the perceived weakness of IOF soldiers.

Al Qassam Brigades had offered an “all-for-all” exchange deal at the very beginning of the war on the besieged enclave, stressing that it was interested in releasing over 12,000 Palestinian hostages in Israeli jails, as well as the Israeli detainees. However, Israel rejected the deal and decided to wage an offensive that killed over 18,000 civilians in Gaza.