A newly-released audio recording shows how three Israeli captives pleaded for help before being killed by the Israeli military in an offensive launched by the regime’s forces against the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority (KAN) aired the recording on Sunday, saying it belonged to two of the three captives who were killed on December 18. They have been identified as 28-year-old Yotam Haim, 26-year-old Alon Shamriz, and 22-year-old Samer Talalka.
According to KAN’s report, Shamriz is heard shouting in the audio clip, “Help!…Help! We are by the stairs, under the stairs! Under the stairs! Please help!”
KAN said the clip had been obtained from a GoPro camera that had been mounted on a dog belonging to the Israeli military’s Oketz canine unit.
The army has alleged that the captives were killed “accidentally” after being “mistakenly identified” as a “threat.”
Also in December, however, an unnamed Israeli military official cited results of an initial inquiry as showing that the trio were within “tens of meters” of Israeli positions during the incident. “They’re all without shirts and they have a stick with a white cloth on it,” the official said at the time.
Shortly after the operation, Shamriz’s father also asserted that his son’s murder was deliberate and that it was not a “mistake” but an “execution.”
The father said Alon, along with the other two, did “everything right” to avoid being killed. “They… took their shirts off, hung a white flag and marched in broad daylight in the middle of the street and shouted for help, but in our army, they don’t know how to follow the rules of engagement.”
According to al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, as many as 70 Israeli captives have been killed by the Israeli military so far.
More than 240 Israeli forces and settlers were taken captive by Hamas on October 7, during a surprise operation staged against the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of occupation and aggression against Palestinians.
Upwards of 30,534 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the still-ongoing Israeli war.
