Dec. 16 (UPI) — The Israeli military said Friday its troops killed three hostages in Gaza after mistakenly identifying them as a threat.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari called it a “tragic accident” and said, “This is an area where the soldiers encountered many terrorists, including suicide bombers.
The hostages killed by the IDF were Yotum Haim and Samar Talalka. The third hostage was not publicly identified by request of their family.
Hagari said the IDF believes hostages either escaped Hamas captors or were abandoned by them.
According to the IDF, the troops shot the hostages in north Gaza in the town of Shejaiya. Suspicion arose over the people killed, and the IDF said in a statement that their bodies were transferred to Israel for examination.
The IDF statement said lessons learned from the tragedy were passed on to IDF troops in Gaza. The Israeli military expressed remorse and said it “sends the families heartfelt condolences.”
The Israeli military earlier Friday announced it had recovered the bodies of three hostages from Gaza — one civilian and two soldiers — two months after they were abducted from southern Israel by Hamas.
Special Forces troops found the body of dual Israeli-French national Elia Toledano in an operation in the strip and brought the body back to Israel, Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X.
The 28-year-old Tel Aviv resident was working as an event organizer at a music festival in Re’im, four miles from the Gaza border, when he was kidnapped by Hamas militants during the attacks of Oct. 7 and taken back to Gaza.
Toledano was abducted alongside friend and fellow French-Israeli Mia Schem, 21. She was released as part of a hostages-for-Palestinian prisoners swap during a weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas that collapsed Dec. 1.
The two friends had tried to escape the attack together by car but the tires were shot out.
Ahead of a visit Saturday to Lebanon to try to help prevent the fighting from widening into a regional conflict, French Foreign Minister Catherine Calonna said she was deeply saddened by the news and that the release of all hostages was a priority for her government.
“Immense sorrow at the announcement by the Israeli armed forces of the death of our compatriot Elia Toledano, hostage of Hamas and whose remains were found in Gaza. We share the pain of his family and loved ones,” Calonna said in a post on X.
Cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces and attacks on American and allied forces in Iraq and Syria are raising fears that Israel’s war with Hamas could spread.
The bodies of Israeli Cpl. Nik Beizer, 19, and Sgt. Ron Sherman, 19, also captured on Oct. 7 from a military police post near the Gaza border fence, were recovered during operational activity and returned to Israeli territory, IDF wrote on X.
Beizer and dual Israeli-Argentine national Sheman were seen alive in a video posted on social media by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Sending condolences to the victims’ families, the IDF pledged that finding and bringing the hostages back was its “national mission.”
“We are working together with security agencies, and with all intelligence and operational means, in order to return all of the hostages home,” the IDF said.
