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.”
According to official data, Hamas seized approximately 250 captives during their October 7 raid on Israel, which murdered 1,139 people.
According to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, Israel’s retaliatory battle against the group has killed almost 18,700 Palestinians.
The Israeli government has said repeatedly that one of its primary war goals is to return all hostages.