Killing Of Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim, And Samer Talalka

On 15 December 2023, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers operating in Shuja'iyya, Gaza as part of the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip shot dead three Israeli hostages taken during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. The hostages, who were trying to get rescued, were visibly unarmed and shirtless and waving a makeshift white flag when they were killed. The incident provoked criticism of the IDF and of the Netanyahu government's attempts to resolve the hostage crisis with military action within Israel and condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza from abroad.

People involved

The three hostages killed by the IDF were identified as Yotam Haim (age 28), Alon Shamriz (age 26) and Samer Talalka (age 24); Haim and Shamriz were kidnapped from the Kfar Aza kibbutz, and Talalka was kidnapped from the Nir Am kibbutz. All three men had been kidnapped during the October 7 attacks. Haim was a drummer for a heavy metal band, Shamriz was a computer engineering student at Sapir College and Talalka had been working in the kibbutz hatchery but was from the Bedouin town of Hura.

Events

According to an IDF official, the three male hostages emerged shirtless out of a building toward a group of IDF soldiers "tens of meters" away, with one carrying a stick with a white cloth. An Israeli sniper then opened fire on them, killing Shamriz and Talalka and wounding Haim. According to an IDF investigation of the incident, the sniper had not recognized the white cloth. In the briefing he had received prior to deploying in the area, he had been told that the entire area was a combat zone and that he was authorized to fire at anyone suspicious. After being shot, Haim ran into a nearby building and shouted for help in Hebrew. The battalion commander then ordered the troops to hold their fire, while Haim was persuaded to exit the building but when he did so 15 minutes later, a soldier acting against the battalion commander's order shot and killed him.IDF probe reportedly reveals soldiers who shot dead hostages weren’t briefed on Hebrew sign spotted ahead of time
/ref> ''Haaretz'' reported that the IDF soldiers followed the third hostage into the building and shot him dead because "they believed that it was a Hamas terrorist attempting to lure them into a trap". ''Yediot Ahronot'' reported that Israeli soldiers had called for the third hostage to come out of the building he was hiding in, and then shot him when he reappeared. The soldiers became suspicious upon retrieving the bodies for they had identifying marks suggesting that they were indeed Israeli hostages who had managed to evade their captors. The hostages were identified after their bodies were returned to Israel.

In days prior to the incident, soldiers had noticed the building the hostages were hiding in, 200 meters from where they would be eventually shot, had fabric signs reading "SOS" and "Help, Three hostages" hanging out of the windows. The letters were written on the fabric with leftover food. The IDF had marked the house as a possible trap. An investigation determined that when the unit which found the signs was redeployed from the area, it did not brief the battalion replacing them, whose troops were responsible for the incident, about the signs.

Investigations

According to the ''The Jerusalem Post'', a preliminary investigation found IDF instructions to soldiers in Shejaia were to open-fire on any man of fighting age who approached them. Following an investigation, the IDF stated the killings were preventable, but disciplinary actions were not needed since there was "no malice" on the part of the soldiers.

Reactions

Protests broke out outside the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv following the news, calling for a negotiated end to the hostage crisis. Open University of Israel professor Yagil Levy said there was "a real gap between the formal rules of engagement and the practice on the battlefield", and Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea called the incident a war crime. Pro-Palestinian voices and critics of the IDF said that the incident demonstrated the Israeli military's indiscriminate use of force on civilians, seeing the soldiers as having mistaken the surrendering Israeli hostages for surrendering Palestinians. Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch, stated that "nobody batted an eye before killing them", and that this case only came under investigation as the deceased turned out to be Israeli. Roy Yellin of B'Tselem stated that his group had documented "countless incidents of people who clearly surrendered and who were still shot" and that the incident came after "a long trend of" escalating Israeli violence that went largely unpunished.

From the IDF and Israeli government

On 15 December, the IDF stated that during operations in Shuja'iyya, they "mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat" and killed them with friendly fire. A senior IDF officer stated that: "We have heard such screams from places in the past, and then there was fighting, after the alert turned out to be an attempt to draw IDF forces to a building and then open fire on them. Unfortunately, we thought it was such an incident."

Benjamin Netanyahu offered condolences to the families of the victims, while Yoav Gallant called the killings "a painful incident for every Israeli". Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi stated that the shooting was against the IDF's rules of engagement and that the hostages had "done everything to show that they were harmless", including removing shirts to show that they were not carrying explosives. The following day, the IDF posted a video of him speaking to the 99th Division of the IDF, reminding them to not shoot surrendering Gazans but to take them as prisoners of war. Social media users pointed out that soldiers in the background of the video appeared nonchalant or were even laughing.

When asked if the soldiers involved in the killing of the three hostages will be pulled from service, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col Richard Hecht stated that they will be "supported in every way possible" as the incident was "terrible and tragic mistake". IDF spokesperson Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus stated that no disciplinary action would be taken against the soldiers, and that there would be no change to IDF ground operations as a result of the killing.

See also

* 2023 Givat Shaul shooting
* Killing of Yuval Castleman
* Killing of Naheda and Samr Anton
* Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

References

{{2023 Israel–Hamas war
Attacks in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
Military scandals
Friendly fire incidents
December 2023 events in Israel
2023 in the Gaza Strip
Civilians killed in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
Deaths by firearm in the Gaza Strip
2023 Israel–Hamas war hostage crisis
Israeli war crimes