Key Points
- A review is underway after the IDF mistakenly shot Israeli hostages.
- Three hostages were mistakenly identified "as a threat" in northern Gaza.
- The IDF says the tragic incident has not changed Israel's mission to "return all the hostages home".
The Israeli army said its troops shot and killed three hostages on Friday after "mistakenly" identifying them as a threat.
"During combat in Shejaiya (a battleground neighbourhood of Gaza City), the IDF (army) mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat. As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed," the army said in a statement.
"Immediate lessons from the event have been learned, which have been passed on to all IDF troops in the field," it added, expressing "deep remorse over the tragic incident".
The army identified the hostages as Yotam Haim and Alon Shamriz, both taken from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during Hamas's October 7 attack, and Samer El-Talalqa, who was taken from Kibbutz Nir Am.
"This is an unbearable tragedy," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
"The entire State of Israel mourns this evening. My heart goes out to the grieving families in their difficult time."
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military "bears responsibility for everything that happened".
"We believe that the three Israelis either escaped or were abandoned by terrorists who held them captive," he said, adding: "We still don't know these details."
Hamas kidnapped around 250 hostages during its October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,139 people, according to official Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory war against Hamas has killed more than 18,700 people, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
The military said it had recovered the bodies of three other hostages killed by Hamas. Israel says it believes around 20 of more than 130 hostages still held in densely populated coastal strip are dead.
The Israeli government has repeatedly stated that bringing home all of the hostages is one of its chief war aims.
Dozens reported killed by Israel airstrikes, including Al Jazeera cameraman
At least 14 people were killed on Saturday by airstrikes that hit two houses on Old Gaza Street in Jabalia and dozens more were killed in a separate air strike that hit another home in Jabalia, according to the official Palestinian WAFA news agency.
WAFA also reported that a large number of civilians were trapped under rubble.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
A cameraman for Al Jazeera was killed by a drone strike on Friday while reporting on the earlier bombing of a school used as a shelter for displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip, the Arabic broadcaster said.
Cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was unable to get to safety or medical treatment after being injured in the strike on the Farhana School in Khan Younis and died of his wounds before ambulances were allowed in the area, Al Jazeera said.
Al Jazeera said Israeli drones fired missiles at the school. Reuters could not verify the details of the incident. Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment.
US and Israel reportedly at odds over IDF tactics
With intense ground fighting across the length of the Gaza Strip and aid organisations warning of a humanitarian catastrophe, the United States has warned that Israel risks losing international support because of "indiscriminate" airstrikes killing Palestinian civilians.
President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, visiting Israel on Thursday and Friday, carried a message to Israel to scale down the broad military campaign and transition to more narrowly targeted operations against Hamas leaders, US officials said.
During Sullivan's visit, Israeli officials publicly emphasised that they would continue the war until they achieve their aim of eradicating Hamas, which may take months.
Washington hinted on Friday at disagreement with Israel over how quickly to scale down the war, with Sullivan saying the timing was the subject of "intensive discussion" between the allies.
Combat has intensified in the past two weeks since a week-long truce collapsed.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Israel was winning the war and degrading Hamas, citing a reduction in the number of rockets fired into Israel.
But hours later and for the first time in weeks, there were sirens in Jerusalem and explosions overhead from at least three interceptions by Israel's Iron Dome air defences. The armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attack it called a response to "Zionist massacres against civilians".
The vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes over the past two months, many several times.
Aid allowed into Gaza from Israel
Meanwhile, Israel approved Friday the "temporary" delivery of aid into Gaza via its Kerem Shalom border crossing, the prime minister's office said, opening a new route for supplies after weeks of pressure.
The Gaza Strip is facing dire humanitarian conditions after more than two months of war, but prior to Friday's decision, all aid entering the territory had to pass through the Rafah crossing on its border with Egypt.
Kerem Shalom, which sits on Gaza's border with Israel, recently began inspecting shipments of aid bound for the territory, but the trucks still had to travel to Rafah afterwards to enter.
Israel's cabinet "approved today a temporary measure of unloading the trucks on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing" in order to increase the amount of aid getting into the territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"The cabinet's decision determines that only humanitarian aid arriving from Egypt will be transferred into the Gaza Strip this way," it added.
Sullivan called the decision a "significant step".
"President Biden raised this issue in recent phone calls with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and it was an important topic of discussion during my visit to Israel over the past two days," he said.
The United States hopes "this new opening will ease congestion and help facilitate the delivery of life-saving assistance", Sullivan added.
A World Health Organization representative said the announcement was "very good news", while a spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres also welcomed Kerem Shalom's reopening.
"The fast implementation of this agreement will increase the flow of aid," said spokesman Stephane Dujarric. "A humanitarian ceasefire will increase the distribution of that aid across Gaza even more."
