The fact that three hostages had left a sign calling on the IDF to rescue them was not conveyed to the Kfir Brigade’s 17th Battalion when they relieved another battalion in Shejaiya on Friday morning, leading to the hostages being mistakenly shot and killed by IDF forces, Kan News reported.

In addition, soldiers from the unit involved in the incident said that the soldier who shot the first two hostages, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka, did not see the white flag they had been carrying.

He opened fire because, in the briefing he received the shooter was told that the entire area north of the building from which the hostages emerged constituted a combat zone without the presence of IDF forces and therefore he was allowed to shoot at any suspicious character in that area.

According to the report, the current investigation into the incident focuses on the shooting of the third victim, Yotam Haim, which occurred even after the battalion commander yelled “cease fire,” and after Haim was injured and ran back into the building.

Initial findings from the investigation, which was carried 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 viewing 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 hostages with his TRIJICON VIEWER, which magnifies objects to four times what the naked eye can see.

• The third managed to run towards a nearby building. Immediately after the shots were fired, the 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.

Source: Arutz Sheva