“During a battle in Shuyaia [en el norte de Gaza], the military mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat. As a result, the troops fired at them and they died.” This is how the Israeli Armed Forces acknowledged this Friday that they had killed three of the 132 kidnapped on October 7 who remained in the Strip. After the incident, the soldiers carried out “searches and controls in the area” and the “suspicion” arose that the bodies were not those of Palestinian militiamen. They were transferred to Israel, where it was confirmed that they corresponded to Alon Lulu Shamriz, Yotam Haim and Samar Talalka, all in their twenties. “We believe that the three fled or were abandoned by the terrorists who were holding them captive. “It is a tragic mistake that we will fully investigate,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
The announcement has led to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; to the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant; and the most popular politician and part of the reduced war cabinet, Benny Gantz, to stress the importance of bringing the hostages back. “Even this difficult afternoon, we will recover from our wounds, learn the necessary lessons and continue our supreme effort to bring back all the hostages safely,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Our responsibility is to win this war and part of this victory is to bring the hostages home. We will do everything we can to bring them back alive. All”, Gantz wrote on the social network, formerly called Twitter. “My heart goes out to the families of the hostages and also to the soldiers who are in the depths.” [de Gaza] carrying out a complex and important mission the likes of which we have never seen since the establishment of the State [de Israel en 1948]”.
The hostages' relatives and their supporters improvised an improvised protest. Hundreds of people gathered around midnight in Tel Aviv with banners such as “There is no victory without the return of the hostages” and chanting slogans such as “Everyone” and “Until the last one.” Even before the deaths became known, Israeli television channel 12 indicated that they were considering starting a hunger strike. The reason: days of information about the paralysis of the negotiating process, in which Qatar, Egypt and the United States mediate and which allowed at the end of November an exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a ceasefire that lasted a week.
Attacks from Yemen
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The incident occurs on the same day that a series of attacks from Yemen, adding to those launched in recent days, have caused an escalation that puts global trade in check on the crucial Red Sea and Indian Ocean route. The Danish Maersk, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, has announced that it is suspending all its operations in the Red Sea.
The Houthis, the pro-Iran rebels who control much of the Yemeni Red Sea coast, have reiterated in recent weeks that they intend to prevent any ships linked to Israel from sailing off their coasts, in retaliation for the invasion of Gaza. The United States has confirmed that two ships have been attacked this Friday with drones and anti-ship missiles in the Bab el Mandeb Strait, a natural passage between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
The Houthis claimed this Friday to have carried out a “military operation against two container ships, the MSC Alanya and the MSC Palatium III, who were heading to Israel.” The ships were attacked with two missiles “after their crews refused to respond to calls from Yemeni naval forces,” said a Houthi spokesman, Yehya Sari, during a protest in support of the Palestinians organized in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which pro-Iranian militias have controlled since 2014. American sources have confirmed to the Reuters and France Presse agencies that two ships had been attacked this Friday from Yemeni territory.
Maersk will suspend all traffic of its ships through the Red Sea. “After an incident that almost affected the ship yesterday Gibraltar and another today in which a container ship has been involved, we have decided to pause our operations through the Bab el Mandeb Strait until further notice,” the company announced this Friday in a statement.
The German Hapag-Lloyd, owner of one of the ships attacked this Friday, reported shortly after that it was suspending its operations in the Red Sea at least until next Monday. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has demanded that Yemeni rebels put an “immediate” end to attacks on civilian merchant ships in the area. “Not only do they endanger Israel's security, but they threaten international maritime transport,” she declared at a press conference.
For its part, the British Navy warned this Friday of three incidents so far in the Red Sea and the Bab al Mandeb Strait, the day it has sent the most warnings all year, according to its official website.
In another close incident, the ship Ruen has been kidnapped about 380 nautical miles from the Yemeni island of Socotra. The ship with 18 crew members from Bulgaria, Myanmar and Angola belongs to the Bulgarian state company Navibulgar and it is unknown which group hijacked the vessel. The Bulgarian Government has confirmed the kidnapping. The frigate of the Spanish Navy Victoryintegrated into the European Union's operation Atalanta that fights against piracy in the Indian Ocean, is heading to the rescue of the Bulgarian cargo ship, according to Eunafvor (EU Naval Force) has reported on the social network X.
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