Investigation: Hostages were shirtless, one waved a white flag - but were shot to death

 

The IDF forces who accidentally killed the three Israeli hostages during combat in Shejaiya, thinking them to be terrorists, operated in violation of the open fire rules, an initial IDF investigation shows.

Initial findings from the investigation, which is under the auspices of IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi himself, show that an IDF marksman who was within the structure identified, at about 10:00, in broad daylight and good viewiing conditions, the three hostages as suspicious, despite the fact that they were unarmed.

The hostages were walking without shirts, in the neighborhood's streets, a few dozen meters from the building in which the soldiers were. One of the hostages was holding a white flag, yet the marksman fired precise bullets at him.

The marksman hit two of the suspects with his Trijicon viewer, which magnifies objects to four times what the naked eye can see. A third individual managed to run towards a nearby building. Immediately after the shots were fired, the fighter-marksman yelled, "Terrorists!" The battalion's commander was also in the building, and ordered the fire to stop because he decided to begin a raid on the building the third hostage - who was still viewed as suspicious by the forces - had run to.

The forces, led by the battalion commander, arrived at the building where the third suspect-hostage was, and from a distance of a few dozen meters away, they heard cries in Hebrew of, "save me." Despite this, the forces decided to attack the building, call out to the person within it to exit, and when he came out of the stairwell, at least one fighter in the force fired towards him at close range.

At a distance of a few hundred meters from the scene where this took place, the forces discovered, a few days ago, graffiti reading, "SOS." in English and the Hebrew words, "hostages," and, "help." At the same time, during the past two days, the building was not inspected due to concerns that it was booby-trapped, since nearby there had been a building which contained explosive devices.