Israel killed 3 hostages in an air strike, hid it from public — report

The Israeli army killed three captives, including two soldiers, in an air strike on besieged Gaza in December last year and concealed it from the public, local Israeli media reported.

Israel's Channel 12 said on Monday the three Israeli captives — Nik Beizer, Ron Sherman and Elia Toledano — were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a senior military leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in northern Gaza.

According to the channel, the Israeli army had known the details of their deaths since February but chose not to publicise them.

In mid-December, the army said it retrieved the bodies of three Israelis from a tunnel who were captured alive by Hamas on October 7 last year.

Commenting on the report, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the army is continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the three Israelis and will present the results to their families.

Hannibal Directive

Similar incidents of killing Israeli captives were announced by the army in the course of its devastating bombardments across besieged Gaza since October 7.

Israel recently recovered the bodies of six hostages that Hamas accused Israel of killing, which brought thousands of Israelis to the streets to protest against hawkish PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel is accused of killing dozens of its own citizens — part of its Hannibal Directive — during its botched reaction to the October 7 raid by Hamas fighters in southern Israel's military sites and settlements that were once Arab farms and villages.

Inside Gaza too, Palestinian officials and media reports say, Israel's indiscriminate bombardment led to many hostage deaths.

Since October 7 last year, Israel has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and wounded nearly 100,000 in the blockaded enclave so far.

But experts and some studies say this is just a tip of an iceberg and the actual Palestinian death toll could be around 90,000 or even close to 190,000.

Israel has also reduced most of Gaza to ruins, while causing a massive shortage of basic necessities, including food, water, electricity and medicine for its 2.4 million people.