The Israeli military on Saturday said three hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli troops had been shirtless, unarmed and bearing a makeshift white flag. The troubling details of how they died have created widespread anguish and prompted renewed calls for a pause in the fighting to allow more hostages to be released.
The military, which acknowledged that the killings violated its rules of engagement, announced the deaths on Friday, hours after saying it had recovered the bodies of three other Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevy, the Israeli military chief of staff, said on Saturday that the three hostages had done “everything so that we would understand” that they were harmless.
“The shooting of the hostages was carried out contrary to the open-fire regulations,” he said. “It is forbidden to shoot at those who raise a white flag and seek to surrender.”
As the death toll of Palestinians killed in 70 days of war soared to nearly 20,000, according to Gazan health officials, the shootings of the Israeli hostages underlined the continuing risks for the more than 120 people who Israel says are still captive and raised questions about Israel’s prosecution of the war.
Some families of the hostages seized on the shootings to urge the government to make securing the captives’ freedom its highest priority.
Itzik Horn, whose children Eitan, 37, and Yair, 45, were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, said the killings reinforced his belief that Israel must immediately reach a deal to free all the captives, even if it means releasing Palestinians being held in Israeli jails on terrorism charges.
“Let them free all the Palestinian prisoners we have here, all the terrorists — what do I care,” Mr. Horn said in an interview. “The most important thing isn’t to defeat Hamas. The only victory here is to bring back all the hostages.”
As Israelis took to the streets to demand the return of the hostages, David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy service, met with Qatari officials on Friday in Europe to discuss the possibility of a renewed pause in the fighting and further exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The meeting had been planned before the death of the hostages.
Describing the results of a preliminary inquiry, the Israeli military said on Saturday that its soldiers had been operating in Shejaiya, an area of Gaza City that had seen intense fighting. The soldiers were on alert for attempts by Hamas to ambush Israeli forces, possibly in civilian clothes, the military said.
The three hostages emerged without shirts from a building tens of yards away from the Israeli soldiers, bearing a stick with a white cloth, the military said. One soldier, believing the men posed a threat, opened fire, killing two of them and wounding the third, the early investigation found.
The third hostage fled into the building, from which a cry in Hebrew for help could be heard, the military said. The battalion commander ordered the forces to hold their fire. But the wounded hostage later re-emerged, after which he was shot and killed, the military statement said.
The hostages may have escaped or had been abandoned by their captors, said an Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under military protocol.
All three men killed — identified by the military as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer Talalka — were kidnapped on Oct. 7 from two kibbutzim in southern Israel near the Gaza border.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents those kidnapped on Oct. 7 and their relatives, said Mr. Talalka, a member of Israel’s Bedouin minority, had been working at a chicken hatchery when he was abducted. Mr. Haim was a drummer who had been set to perform at a heavy-metal music festival in Tel Aviv on the night of the Hamas attacks. Mr. Shamriz was about to start college courses in computer engineering.
As Israelis mourned their deaths, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the killings “an unbearable tragedy” and praised the “brave warriors who are devoted to the sacred mission of returning our hostages, even at the cost of their lives.”