IDF shoot hostages in Gaza after 'mistakenly identifying them as a threat'

If a soldier is stressed to the point of killing someone with a white flag maybe they shouldn’t be in in this mission

Yes, it's terribly sad.

@Struggggggling maybe here is your answer

Israeli, Qatari officials to meet in Oslo on Saturday: Report

David Barnea, the Israeli intelligence agency’s chief, and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, are set to meet on Saturday in Norway’s capital, Oslo, to renew discussion for the release of captives, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The talks were described as “exploratory”, read the report, adding that Barnea is also expected to meet with Egyptian officials.

It's really awful to think they may have escaped and were trying to approach the soldiers for safety. One was pleading for his life in Hebrew.

BBC headline

Killed hostages were either abandoned or had escaped - IDF

Reminds me of the Russian hostage who escaped and was returned by locals to his captors because it would be 'safer'

@Delightangels It is important to scrutinise. This is tragic for the hostages and heart breaking to the families. It can't be dismissed as 'stressed out soldiers'. It must not happen again. Also, there may be a common thread of competency in the military which might explain the enormous amount of wounded and killed women and children.

Another point that has come to light is there was a building nearby with SOS painted on it. The IDF will be investigating if this was related to the hostages.

"Pointless"? All situations like this should be thoroughly investigated and bought into the open. Lest you end up with an army full of trigger happy sadists with zero accountability.

@Delightangels it's not pointless. It's a discussion which raises many questions on the situation on the ground and how this is being managed

IDF say against their rules of engagement which is clearer in the longer description - the commander shouted 'ceasefire' but the soldiers carried on shooting

Not an easy situation by any means but you sound pretty dismissive to me

In terms of changing tactics this was mentioned. Although it doesn't specify what the tactics and rules of engagement are

"I'll say very, very clear. This was against our rules of engagement. I repeat, it was against our rules of engagement," the IDF official says.
He says the killings were "very tragic" and a preliminary Investigation is ongoing "at the highest level".
He says lessons have been learned, and "all the rules of engagement are being sent out again to all the forces".

@Parkingt111 Agree it sounds like someone inexperienced panicked - and shouted 'terrorist' when they saw some unexpected movement

@Struggggggling it's worse than that
See @Efacsen update. The BBC have also now reported on it too

I think you might be right about the soldiers engaging in ground battle, in terms of how experienced they are or is there alot of young conscripts with not much experience?

@Efacsen it's on BBC now too. I'm shocked they were holding white flags and still killed

This is from Peter Beaumont longtime writer for the Guardian

Israeli hostages killed mistakenly in Gaza were holding white flag, official says

According to reports in the Hebrew media an initial IDF probe into the incident suggests all three men were shirtless, with one carrying a makeshift white flag.

On seeing them, one Israeli soldier shouted “terrorists!” to the other forces, initiating fire at the men, a military official said.

While two hostages were hit immediately and fell to the ground, the third managed to escape into a nearby building where despite pleas in Hebrew, he was also shot and killed.

On weapons, various groups around the world are getting their weapons on the black market. The market was flooded after weapons were sent to Ukraine with lax or absent controls on tracking them.

Weapons traffickers have enjoyed a bonanza.

"...this excess of international military aid to Ukraine is becoming a time bomb. Combined with a total absence of control by Western and Ukrainian authorities, it has provided an apparently inexhaustible supply of state-of-the art weaponry to black markets across the world..."
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-000805EN.html

Source for that or is it just pure speculation on your part? I go for the latter.

What type of armed group are they?

I was thinking more about this and actually this does make sense. If they killed the hostages like this who had no weapons/unarmed and only realised later on that they were possibly hostages then in a densely populated area like Gaza how many other civilians have been killed like this that we know nothing about?

@Struggggggling this was just now from sky's military analyst

He says it is "pretty evident" that none of the three men would have been armed.
"Where would they have found weapons? If they had escaped, they wouldn't have had weapons and they would have been a civilian attire," Bell explains.
"So, first of all, why were they shot in the first place?"
Secondly, he says, more people are injured by single gunshot wounds than are killed.
This implies that a "hail of bullets" likely killed the hostages, Bell says. "It probably wasn't one or two bullets."
"This talks to the sort of professionalism of the IDF... what on earth are they doing targeting people and killing them when they don't have weapons?"
Bell explains that this incident could explain a growing number of casualties amid the IDF's ground operations in Gaza.