“We ask the War Cabinet, we warn them that the fighting could harm the hostages. Unfortunately, we were right,” he says. Raz Ben Ami at a demonstration in Tel Aviv. Ben Ami was freed by her captors in Gaza as part of the latest exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners; her husband Ohad remains kidnapped.
When news broke Friday evening that three Hamas hostages had been accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers, hundreds of people left their homes in Tel Aviv and headed to Kidnapped Square in front of the Defense Ministry, flanked by the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Library and the courts. There one of the representatives of four families, Robbie ChenIsraeli and American citizen, his son Itai He was in Hamas captivity and said: “We don’t have time, so I’m walking around with this hourglass, both here and in the United States.”
These families do not form a homogeneous front, they have a common demand that the government bring their relatives home, but they do not necessarily agree politically and the tension is palpable at times.
Chen asked for a meeting with the Israeli cabinet to find out if and what they are negotiating. He said it was necessary to “release terrorists with blood on their hands to rescue the hostages.” Or my son comes home in a bag. Another person present at the spontaneous act, Dany Elgarathis brother Yitzchak is a hostage in Gaza, said that it was not the soldiers who killed the hostages who were to blame, but the people who sent them there.
According to an initial military investigation, the three hostages killed on Friday in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood were shirtless and one of them carried a stick with a makeshift white flag.
Yotam Haim28, drummer in a metal band, Samar Talalka22, who worked in his father’s chicken coop, and Alon Lulu ShamrizThe 26-year-old computer engineering student apparently managed to escape captivity before troops accidentally killed her around 10 a.m. Friday morning.
The soldier, believing that the men coming towards him were actually Hamas members setting a trap, immediately opened fire and shouted “Terrorists!” at the other forces, killing two of them and wounded the third, who escaped and hid.
The battalion commander asked the emergency services to cease fire. According to the military statement, troops heard someone, apparently the third hostage, shouting “help” in Hebrew. Moments later, the wounded man left the building he had fled to and another soldier opened fire on him, killing him.
According to the preliminary investigation, both soldiers acted against protocol and the Israeli Chief of Staff by shooting someone with a white flag, Lt. General Dear HaleviHe took responsibility for what happened in a video statement.
Anger among the hostage families has increased in recent days after reports that the government has delayed the start of new negotiations on the exchange of people with Hamas, saying it believes that only continuing military operations in Gaza will will force Hamas to negotiate. “The return of hostages in exchange for prisoners is urgent and critical. Taking the initiative is a sign of strength, not weakness,” said Ben Ami. “We beg you, you promised to bring the abductees alive, why are you waiting?”
It turned out that the head of the Mossad, David Barneaand the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thanimet somewhere in Europe this Saturday to discuss the exchange of people between Israel and Hamas, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In Gaza, isolated and miserable
A prolonged communications, telephone and internet outage exacerbated the already dire situation in the Gaza Strip. The lines went down Thursday afternoon and remained inaccessible Saturday morning, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org, hampering aid deliveries and rescue efforts as the war continued into its 11th week.
According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, the death toll is around 18,000, although no distinction is made between deaths of civilians and combatants. The Israeli military estimates that around 7,000 Hamas members and civilians were killed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets.
The Israeli offensive has devastated large parts of the northern Gaza Strip and forced 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents from their homes. Due to the growing humanitarian crisis, displaced people crowded into emergency shelters, especially in the south.
Meanwhile in Red Sea waters, Switzerland-based MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co., the world’s largest container shipping company, announced it would stop using the Suez Canal after an attack on one of its ships. Yemen’s self-proclaimed Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have in recent weeks attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key route that allows trade between the West and the East, and especially oil, to use the Suez Canal rather than circumnavigate Africa.
This comes after similar announcements from Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd that four of the world’s five largest shipping companies have rerouted their shipping routes due to the Houthi attacks.
A US guided-missile destroyer shot down a wave of 14 drones launched by the Houthis in the Red Sea on Saturday, US Central Command said in a statement. “They were considered disposable attack drones and were shot down without causing any damage or injury to ships in the area. “The Red Sea regional partners have been made aware of the threat,” the statement said.