The Israeli military claims there is a “high probability” that its airstrike in Gaza killed three hostages.The Israeli military says there is a “high probability” that its airstrike in Gaza killed three hostages.”The three hostages who were killed in Gaza in November were most likely the victims of an Israeli airstrike, the Israeli military said on Sunday.
The three hostages—Corporal Nik Beizer, Sergeant Ron Sherman, and French-Israeli Elia Toledano—died the previous month, and their bodies were returned to Israel in December.
“The findings of the investigation suggest a high probability that the three were killed as a byproduct of an IDF air strike, during the elimination of the Hamas Northern Brigade commander, Ahmed Ghandour, on November 10th, 2023,” the military said in a statement regarding the three captives.
This assessment took into account a number of factors, including the location of their bodies’ discovery in relation to the strike’s effects, the strike’s performance analysis, intelligence findings, pathology report results, and conclusions from the Forensic Medicine Institute.
According to all the information at hand, “this is a high-probability assessment, but it is not possible to determine the circumstances of their deaths definitively,” the military stated.
On December 14, the three hostages’ bodies were found.
After an investigation, the military declared that the three hostages had been held in a network of tunnels from which Ghandour operated.
“At the time of the strike, the IDF was unaware that hostages were inside the targeted compound,” the military asserted.
“Moreover, the region was not designated as having a potential hostage situation because there was evidence indicating their whereabouts.”
:
