[ Contrary to initial claims, the Israeli army carried out
relentless strikes with little intelligence of Israeli hostages’
whereabouts or precaution for their safety, a +972 and Local Call
investigation shows.]
[[link removed]]

‘THE HOSTAGES WEREN’T OUR TOP PRIORITY’: HOW ISRAEL’S BOMBING
FRENZY ENDANGERED CAPTIVES IN GAZA  
[[link removed]]


 

Yuval Abraham
December 17, 2023
+972 Magazine
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Contrary to initial claims, the Israeli army carried out relentless
strikes with little intelligence of Israeli hostages’ whereabouts or
precaution for their safety, a +972 and Local Call investigation
shows. _

People walk by photographs of Israelis held hostage in Gaza at
"Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv, December 12, 2023., (Photo: Miriam
Alster/FLASH90 // +972 Magazine)

 

The IDF Spokesperson’s announcement on Friday that Israeli soldiers
in the Gaza Strip had “mistakenly shot dead
[[link removed]]”
three Israeli hostages, who had been abducted by Hamas during
its October 7
[[link removed]] assault, has shocked
Israeli society. Despite reportedly removing their shirts and holding
up a white cloth to signal surrender, the soldiers deemed the hostages
— one of whom was a Bedouin citizen
[[link removed]] —
threats and fired at them. Herzl Halevi, the IDF Chief of Staff, took
personal responsibility for the incident, adding
[[link removed]]: “There is nothing IDF
soldiers and commanders in the Gaza Strip want more than to rescue
hostages alive. In this case, we failed to do so.”

Halevi’s sentiment, however, does not always appear to have been put
into practice. A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call
suggests that, since the beginning of the Gaza war, the Israeli
leadership has relegated the goal of ensuring the hostages’ safety
in favor of larger military and political goals in the occupied
territory — a fact that has not only stoked anger and discontent
[[link removed]] from
hostages’ families, but seems to have been pursued despite concerns
from soldiers, especially during the first few weeks of the operation.

Intelligence sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call on the condition
of anonymity, before the shooting of the three abductees on Friday,
affirmed that during the initial stages of the war, the Israeli
army’s intense bombardment of Gaza was conducted without having a
clear picture of where many of the more than 240 hostages were being
held. The relentless
[[link removed]] airstrikes
[[link removed]] — which
have so far killed
[[link removed]] more
than 18,700 Palestinians, displaced
[[link removed]] the vast
majority of Gaza’s population, and decimated
[[link removed]] large
swathes of the besieged Strip — also continued despite concerns that
the bombings might endanger the lives of the hostages, according to
the sources.

Echoing this sense of an indiscriminate and haphazard policy,
testimonies from newly freed Israeli hostages, who were released as
part of exchange deals
[[link removed]] for
Palestinian prisoners during a temporary ceasefire
[[link removed]] in
late November, as well as from some of the hostages’ families
[[link removed]],
indicate that one of the main fears of those held captive in Gaza was
the threat of being hit by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. Many of
the hostages, according to these testimonies, were held above ground
rather than in tunnels, and were therefore particularly vulnerable to
such attacks.

Referring to the first weeks of Israel’s onslaught, one intelligence
source told +972 and Local Call that “the IDF shelled extensively,
destroying half of Gaza, while having little intelligence.” The
source emphasized that the army “would not have killed hostages
deliberately if they knew they were in a certain building,” but that
it nonetheless carried out thousands of strikes knowing full well that
hostages might be also harmed, especially at a time when “there were
many hostages held in private apartments [above ground].”
 

An Israeli combat helicopter firing a missile toward a target in the
Gaza Strip, seen from the Israeli side of the fence, December 13,
2023.  (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
This account is consistent with what some of the released hostages
have said upon their return. Noam Dan, three of whose relatives were
kidnapped on October 7 — and two of whom have since been freed —
told +972 and Local Call that as soon as the first captives were
released, the families discovered that much of what Israeli
politicians had told them about the hostages’ whereabouts was
untrue.

“At first, government officials made it clear to us that the
hostages were in tunnels, and therefore the army’s bombings won’t
hit them,” she said. “When the hostages were released, we realized
that many of them were above ground, in people’s homes. The
government kept telling us that they knew where they were, that they
wouldn’t do anything that would endanger them, that everything was
under control. But once the abductees got out of there, these things
turned out to be false. Everything we thought [was true] collapsed.”

Dan added that, from conversations she had with freed hostages, she
learned that their primary fear was being killed or wounded by the
Israeli army’s attacks — a feeling echoed by other captives
released in recent weeks. She also said that there was evidence of
hostages being hit by Israel’s bombing in Gaza.

Two intelligence sources also said they now have concrete evidence
that some female Israeli hostages were sexually assaulted by their
Hamas captors while in captivity, corroborating testimonies published
[[link removed]] by
the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and elsewhere
[[link removed]].
The sources said that some are still in danger of sexual abuse, and
that the window of opportunity to release them is getting smaller.

Intelligence sources further told +972 and Local Call that they
believe that only public pressure for another deal with Hamas will
bring about the release of all the remaining hostages — pressure
that has been mounting in recent days, including with a large protest
[[link removed]] held
in Tel Aviv Saturday evening. The sources said they felt the issue had
been “let go” by Israel’s political leaders, and for this
reason, it was important to share their information for this article.
 

Families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza hold a press
conference at “Hostages Square”, outside the Tel Aviv Museum of
Art, December 16, 2023.  (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90  //  +972
Magazine)
“It’s very hard for me that there is no goal, and no political
vision of what will happen the day after the war,” one of the
sources said. “There is no strategic plan. There are endless,
bombastic, motivational statements about toppling Hamas and how
we’ll drink a mojito on the beach in Gaza next year. Statements
without logic backed by a lot of irrational commanders, who are still
acting to carry out revenge.

“When the military objective is so vague, I feel that I am here for
only one reason: to try to press for a political agreement and a
prisoner exchange,” the source continued. “This is more important
than anything.”

‘There’s nothing we can do — we have to win the war’

On Nov. 30, +972 and Local Call published a detailed investigation
[[link removed]] revealing
that the Israeli army has greatly expanded its bombing of non-military
targets in Gaza compared to previous assaults on the besieged Strip,
and that it is using artificial intelligence to generate more
potential targets than ever before. The exposé also revealed that the
army has loosened the constraints on expected civilian casualties from
its airstrikes, including knowingly killing hundreds of Palestinian
civilians while trying to assassinate one senior Hamas figure.

These policies — which have contributed to perhaps the deadliest and
most destructive military campaign against Palestinians since the
Nakba — also put the lives of the Israeli hostages in danger,
according to the intelligence sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call
for this new investigation. 

The sources said that the Israeli military is today taking more
precautions with regard to avoiding harm to hostages than it was at
the beginning of the war, partly because the intelligence picture has
become significantly clearer. However, some of the sources said that
“mistakes still happen,” and that they have evidence from the past
month that hostages may have been hit by Israeli airstrikes. 
 

Smoke rises during Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, as seen from
the Israeli side of the fence, December 11, 2023.  (Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
One source explained that, shortly after the Hamas-led massacres of
October 7, which killed over 1,100 people in southern Israel, there
was a sense that “the lives of the hostages were a price that people
in the army, especially senior commanders, were willing to pay.” 

The source continued: “My feeling is that [the army and political
top brass] knew they were going to be forced to resign at the end of
the war, and they wanted to present military achievements, among other
things, as a way to protect themselves. We were told that even if
Hamas executed one hostage every day, we would not stop bombing. I
hoped that the [Israeli] public would protest. [I knew] if there was
no public pressure for a prisoner deal, the abductees would die. After
a few weeks, Israeli [public] and U.S. pressure to advance a deal
caused the [military’s] attitude toward the abductees to change.”

“At the start, it was constantly stated that the goal was to win the
war and eradicate Hamas, not to bring back the hostages, and that
there’s nothing we can do about it,” said a different intelligence
source. “I saw that this bothered a lot of people [in the
intelligence community], but they were in a stressful situation — an
earthquake that began on October 7 and never ended. So soldiers were
critical of the army, but they also saw how bad Hamas is, and they
thought, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it — we have to win
the war.’”

Another source told +972 and Local Call that the Israeli army tried to
avoid killing hostages, but the emphasis at first was placed on
military goals. “In the first two or three weeks, we didn’t have
enough intelligence about the hostages, and they were not the top
priority,” the source said. “We didn’t start the day with an
update on the status of the hostages. It wasn’t our top priority
then — and the truth is, they aren’t today either. Unfortunately,
I don’t think the army can [free the hostages through rescue
operations]. I don’t think we will be able to release hostages
without a deal.”
 

Israeli soldiers seen at a military staging area before entering the
Gaza Strip, December 13, 2023.  (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90  //  +972
Magazine)
One of the sources referred to a quote
[[link removed]] by
Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Council, a
week after the Hamas attack, that there would be no negotiations with
Hamas for the release of the hostages, because “we have no way of
negotiating with an enemy that we swore to wipe off the face of the
earth.” The source said that this statement reflected well the
atmosphere that prevailed in the first weeks of the war, until public
pressure mounted to advance a deal with Hamas. 

Notably, during those early stages of the operation, the Israeli
government reportedly rejected proposals
[[link removed].] to
release some hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire — a deal
that was eventually agreed to in late November.

“We recently reduced the number of bombings in Gaza because there is
not much left to bomb,” another source explained. “The army is
very busy today with the question of how not to kill the hostages;
this is a central issue now in the war. They try not to bomb them, but
it can happen accidentally, and it has happened accidentally in the
past.”

The source also detailed how even Israel’s strikes on known Hamas
leaders can endanger the lives of hostages. “One of the things that
is not discussed by the Israeli public is that there are female
hostages held next to senior Hamas figures all the time. They’re
using them as human shields. So to try to kill the senior Hamas
figures is to know that you will sacrifice a female hostage.”

These comments seem to be in line with what Hanegbi said
[[link removed]] in
another interview last week: “If we receive information about [Hamas
leader Yahya] Sinwar’s location, and we know that he is surrounded
by Israeli hostages, it will be a heartbreaking dilemma … In the
end, we will have to make a decision.”

 

Families and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza and protest
for their release at “Hostage Square” outside the Tel Aviv Museum
of Art, October 26, 2023.   (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90  //  +972
Magazine)
Other intelligence sources disagreed with the aforementioned
testimonies, telling +972 and Local Call that the hostages had been
the military’s top priority from the very beginning. “We were
never told that it is permissible to endanger hostages in order to
eradicate Hamas,” one source said. “From the first moment, we
invested the same amount of resources to advance both goals
simultaneously.” 

One of the sources said that extensive attacks that endangered
hostages had indeed been carried out at the start, but that “there
was no choice” because a forceful response had to be made after the
October 7 attacks.

‘I was afraid of IDF shelling more than of Hamas’

The sources’ testimonies are consistent with statements made by
released Israeli hostages and their families during a heated meeting
with the Israeli war cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, on Dec. 4.

“I see you’re bombing there, and you have no idea where the
hostages are,” one of the freed hostages said, according to leaked
recordings [[link removed]] from the
meeting. “I was at a house when there were bombings all around. I
know a family that miraculously survived after a shell hit the house
[they were being held in]. We sat in the tunnels and we were terrified
that it wouldn’t be Hamas but Israel that would kill us. 

“You put politics above the return of the hostages,” the freed
hostage continued. “My husband [another hostage] beat himself
because it was so hard for him, and you’re just thinking about
toppling Hamas. I saw a hostage die next to me.”
 

Palestinians at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern
Gaza Strip, December 12, 2023.  (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90  //
 _972 Magazine)
According to the recordings, another hostage, who was released with
her children but whose husband remains captive, said that “the
feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us. The
fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled, and we had to
be smuggled out wounded. You claim there is intelligence, but the fact
is that we are being bombed.”

An elderly woman from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the communities
targeted by Hamas on October 7, described in the meeting how, on one
occasion in captivity in Gaza, a closet fell on them from the blast of
a bomb. “I thought I was going to be blown up any second,” she
said. “I told myself I couldn’t understand how Israel wanted to
blow us up.”

Another abductee released in the hostage-prisoner exchange — an
elderly woman from Kibbutz Be’eri, where at least 89 of the small
community’s residents were killed and 24 were kidnapped to Gaza
during Hamas’ October 7 attacks — told the war cabinet that during
her time in captivity, “I was afraid of IDF shelling more than I was
afraid of Hamas.” 

Meirav Raviv — four of whose family members, including 9-year-old
Ohad Munder, were kidnapped to Gaza, and three of whom were released
— echoed this sentiment to +972 and Local Call: “The thing that
scared them the most is the shelling by the IDF,” she said.
“There’s no bomb shelter. There’s no siren. No alarm. It happens
suddenly. And they are scared to death. They heard [bombing] all the
time. They were also scared that there would be some heroic [rescue]
operation, and they would be killed.”

Filmmaker Hagai Levy met eight of the abductees upon their return.
Writing on his Facebook page, he said that for most of them, the most
horrifying trauma of captivity was the Israeli bombing, especially
among those held in homes above ground. 
 

Israeli soldiers seen inside the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza
Strip, December 12, 2023.  (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90  //  +972
Magazine)
“When they talk about the bombing, they literally shake in front of
me,” he wrote
[[link removed]].
“The terms they use are ‘hell,’ [and] ‘being on the verge of
death.’ The fear of being murdered by their captors was negligible
compared to the fear of dying in a bombing. The very thought that the
one who is supposed to save you is the one who might kill you
intensifies the trauma.”

Levy interviewed the freed hostages for video testimonies commissioned
by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum — the body coordinating
the families’ national and international campaigns to free their
loved ones. In these videos, which the Forum edited, most of the clips
in which the abductees talk about Israeli bombing were shelved. (The
Forum had not responded to +972’s queries on this matter by the time
of publication; any response will be added to this article if and when
it is received.)

Levy believes it is a short-sighted mistake to cut those
testimonies. 

“The clear and immediate danger to the lives of the abductees is
currently posed by IDF actions,” he wrote
[[link removed]] in
another Facebook post. “The Hostages and Missing Families
Forum must depart from its appeasement of the mainstream and its
conformity, shout and scream and demand an immediate ceasefire and an
immediate resumption of negotiations.”

Roni Krivoi, an Israeli with Russian citizenship who worked as a
soundman at the Supernova music festival that was attacked on October
7, was kidnapped and released by Hamas as a “tribute” to Russian
President Vladimir Putin. After his release, Krivoi’s aunt told
[[link removed]] Israeli media that he was
held in a building that collapsed after being bombed by the army, and
that he managed to escape. For four days, she said, he wandered alone
in Gaza until he was caught by residents who returned him to his
captors. 
 

Familiies and friends of Israelis held hostage in Gaza hold an event
at the “Hostages Square” outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art,
calling the Israeli government to act for the immediate release of the
hostages on October 28, 2023.  (Gili Yaari/FLASH90  //  +972
Magazine)
Intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call that they feel a sense
of growing urgency over the fate of the Israeli hostages, because the
situation of some of the captives is extremely difficult. “It really
depends on which kidnapper abducted you,” one of the sources said.
“Some got food, some didn’t. There are those who have been treated
by a doctor, and some who have not.”

During the tense war cabinet meeting, some of the released hostages
and the families of those still captive demanded that Netanyahu
advance a deal with Hamas and place the issue at the top of his
priorities. Netanyahu told the families that there is currently no
political possibility of advancing an “all for all” deal — the
release of all hostages in exchange for the release of all Palestinian
political prisoners — in part because such a scenario would enable
the survival of Hamas’ rule over Gaza.

Netanyahu also claimed that it was only thanks to Israeli military
pressure and ground maneuvers that it was possible to release hostages
over the past weeks, and that “continued maneuvering is the key to
returning the rest of the abductees.” But many of the hostages’
families, as well as the intelligence sources we spoke to, doubt this
statement. 

“All the time, it’s this slogan of force, and force will be
answered with force. We see that it doesn’t help, that it only
results in more soldiers being killed,” Raviv said. “They wanted
military pressure, they used pressure, and it didn’t help. And I am
almost certain — although they deny this in the government — that
they could have negotiated the release of the women and children even
before the ground incursion. 
 

Members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad release Israeli hostages to the Red
Cross in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, November 28, 2023.   (Flash90
 //  +972 Magazine)
“I want this issue to be their top priority,” Raviv continued.
“At first, it just wasn’t. We had to meet with [Israeli government
ministers] in order to convince them. I met with the Spanish foreign
minister, the Canadian prime minister, and with senators and members
of the U.S. Congress, long before the [Israeli ministers] met with us
here in Israel.”

‘What are you waiting for?’

So far, only one hostage has been freed alive during a rescue
operation since the beginning of the fighting: the 19-year-old soldier
Uri Magidish. Several other hostages, as well as soldiers, have been
killed during similar operations in recent weeks. One intelligence
source summed it up bluntly: “Military rescue operations endanger
the hostages.” The killing of three hostages by Israeli soldiers on
Friday only exemplified this further.

According to the Israeli army, there are currently 127 hostages still
being held in the Gaza Strip. Most of the remaining hostages are men,
including eight Thai nationals, one Tanzanian, and one Nepali. There
are also thought to be at least 17 women among the captives, as well
as several men over the age of 75, and two children. 

Previous army statements further said that 28 Israelis were either
murdered in Hamas captivity or killed on October 7, and their bodies
are still being held by the group. Hamas, for its part, has claimed in
various videos and statements published on its Telegram channel since
October 7 that seven abductees were killed in attacks by the Israeli
army. Israel vehemently denies these allegations and has derided them
as psychological warfare. 

According to Hamas, three members of the Bibas family — 32-year-old
Shiri and her two children, 10-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel —
were killed in Israeli attacks. On Nov. 30, Hamas released a video
showing the hostage Yarden Bibas, the children’s father and
Shiri’s husband, saying he has been told that his wife and children
were killed by Israeli bombing and asking the government to return
their bodies to Israel. 

 

Israelis take part in a protest calling for the release of the Bibas
family from captivity in Gaza: 10-month-old Kfir, 4-year-old Ariel,
and their parents Shiri and Yarden, at “Hostages Square” in Tel
Aviv, December 8, 2023.  (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
Hamas also alleged that the 19-year-old soldier Tamir Nimrodi was
killed by Israeli bombing on Oct. 9. The three members of the Bibas
family and Tamir Nimrodi are still listed by the army as missing and
not murdered.

On Nov. 13, Hamas released a video claiming that the 19-year-old
Israeli soldier Noa Marciano had been killed in a bombing attack by
the Israeli army. Six days later, the IDF Spokesperson issued an
unusual statement
[[link removed]] asserting that
Marciano had been abducted to a house near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza
City, and that “during IDF attacks in the area the Hamas terrorist
who was holding her was killed, and Noa was wounded.” This is the
only case in which the IDF Spokesperson publicly stated that an
Israeli airstrike hit a hostage. 

According to the IDF Spokesperson, an autopsy of Marciano’s body
showed that the wound from the Israeli strike did not kill her or
endanger her life, and Hamas later murdered her inside the hospital.

The sixth hostage that Hamas alleges was killed in Israeli attacks is
Aryeh Zalmanovitch, an 85-year-old abductee from Kibbutz Nir Oz and
the oldest of all the hostages. Zalmanovich had diabetes, heart and
kidney disease, and needed medication to regulate blood pressure and a
special diet. Other abductees from Nir Oz, who were released from
captivity, said [[link removed]] that
Zalmanovich died next to them. 

His son Boaz said
[[link removed]] that according to
testimonies from released hostages, his father “did not receive the
medicine and food he needed” in captivity, so as far as he was
concerned, Zalmanovich was murdered by Hamas. Hamas claimed
[[link removed]] in its video that Zalmanovich
died from panic due to Israeli bombing.
 

Familiies and friends of Israelis held hostage in Gaza hold an event
at the “Hostages Square” outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art,
calling the Israeli government to act for the immediate release of the
hostages on October 28, 2023.  (Gili Yaari/FLASH90  //  +972
Magazine)
Finally, on Dec. 9, Hamas claimed that Sahar Baruch, a 25-year-old
civilian from Be’eri, had been killed during an attempted rescue
operation and that Israeli soldiers were also killed during the rescue
attempt. The army said
[[link removed]] two soldiers were
seriously injured during a failed rescue attempt, but denied that the
operation was intended to rescue Baruch. Be’eri announced the next
day that Baruch had been murdered in Hamas captivity
[[link removed]].
Sahar’s aunt said [[link removed]] they
“don’t really know how it happened,” and that the report they
received from the military “has no details.”

Holding civilians hostage, including women, children, and the elderly,
is illegal under international law. The status of the remaining
Israeli hostages is unknown, with Hamas refusing
[[link removed]] to
allow the Red Cross to visit them. Israel has similarly refused
[[link removed]] to
allow the Red Cross to visit the thousands of Palestinians it has
arrested since October 7, according to prisoners’ rights groups,
both in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian prisoners — many of them
incarcerated by Israel’s occupying army under negligible charges or
no charges at all, and who could be slated for release in the event of
another hostage exchange deal — have also reported
intensified crackdowns and abuses
[[link removed]] by
Israeli prison authorities since the war. 

“We have to chase after you and beg you [to make a deal],” Danny
Elgarat, whose brother Itzhak is still held captive in Gaza, said
[[link removed]] of
the Israeli government at Saturday’s Tel Aviv demonstration. “We
are waiting to hear from you this very night if you have some sort of
outline, some deal. What are you waiting for?”

_[YUVAL ABRAHAM is a journalist and activist based in Jerusalem.]_

* Hostages
[[link removed]]
* Hamas
[[link removed]]
* Israeli airstrikes
[[link removed]]
* Israeli bombing
[[link removed]]
* Ceasefire
[[link removed]]
* Cease Fire
[[link removed]]
* Israeli army
[[link removed]]
* IDF
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Israel-Gaza War
[[link removed]]
* Palestinians
[[link removed]]
* Benjamin Netanyahu
[[link removed]]
* U.S.-Israel relations
[[link removed]]
* Genocide
[[link removed]]
* West Bank
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
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[[link removed]]
*
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[[link removed]]

 

 

 

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