Israel confirms hostage deaths in Gaza airstrike targeting Hamas commander

Jerusalem, Sep 15 (EFE).- The Israeli army confirmed on Sunday that three hostages, whose bodies were discovered in a Gaza tunnel in December, were likely killed in an airstrike targeting a Hamas commander.

The army said it had no prior knowledge of their presence during the strike in Jabalia as airstrikes inadvertently hit the site where the hostages, Ron Sherman, Nik Beizer, and Elia Toledano, were held.

The information was shared with the families of Ron Sherman and Nik Beizer, both 19, and Elia Toledano, 28.

The three were presumed dead after Israel attacked a tunnel complex in Jabalia, aiming to eliminate Hamas commander Ahmed Ghandour.

“The findings of the investigation suggest that the three, with high probability, were killed by a byproduct of an IDF airstrike, during the assassination” of Ghandour, the army said.

“This is a highly probable estimate given all the data, but it is not possible to determine with certainty the circumstances of their death,” the military said.

The army said it was able to determine that they were killed by the airstrike on Ghandour based on the locations where the bodies were found, an investigation of the airstrike, intelligence findings, pathology reports, and findings made by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

The investigation revealed that the three hostages were in the tunnel complex from which Ghandour operated, but at the time of the attack, the military had no information on hostages being held in the area.

Their deaths follow the deaths of three other captives, shot «by mistake» by Israeli troops in mid-December in Shujaiya, on the outskirts of Gaza City.

According to a military spokesperson, the captives were not wearing shirts and were carrying a white flag when they were mistakenly killed.

Two days ago, during a trip with international media embedded with the Israeli army to Rafah, southern Gaza, where EFE was present, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said the troops are carefully examining the Rafah tunnel network to avoid repeating previous errors.

It was in Rafah, in a dead-end tunnel in the Tal al-Sultan district, that Israeli forces discovered the bodies of six other hostages on Sep. 1. According to forensic examination, these hostages were «executed» at point-blank range by Hamas just 24 hours before Israeli troops found them by chance.

Hamas’s armed wing confirmed a day later that, following an Israeli rescue operation in June that freed four captives but resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Gazans, its fighters had «received new instructions» on how to handle hostages if Israeli troops approached. EFE

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