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Courtesy on 16 December, 2023
Cries for Help Recorded by Dog-Cam Before Hostages Mistakenly Killed
Jerusalem, 20 December, 2023 (TPS) -- A camera attached to an Israeli military dog picked up cries for help from three hostages before soldiers mistakenly shot by soldiers, the Israel Defense Forces disclosed on Wednesday.
Hostages Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Fouad Talalka had escaped from the building where they were held captive only to be mistakenly killed by soldiers on December 15.
A military probe found that on December 10, soldiers from a Golani Brigade reconnaissance unit had a sent a dog from the IDF’s Oketz canine unit into a building in northern Gaza’s Shejaiya area from where Hamas terrorists had fired on them. A camera attached to the dog recorded the hostages’ cries for help, though they were never actually seen. The dog was killed by the terrorists. The Golani soldiers later that day killed the terrorists, enabling the Haim, Shamriz and Talalka to escape.
Five days later, they were found by the soldiers who mistakenly shot them.
According to the probe, the dog-cam feed was not monitored in real-time. The recording surfaced on December 18, when soldiers recovered the body of the dog and its camera.
IDF investigators also reported that the hostages had written on the walls of the building “SOS” and “3 hostages,” but the Golani soldiers believed the writing was a Hamas ruse.
The soldiers had not been given instructions on what to do if they found hostages on the battlefield and there was apparently no intelligence of captives in the vicinity.
Haim, and Shamriz were both kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while Talalka, was taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Am. All three were in their twenties.
At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. The number of men, women, children, soldiers and foreigners held captive in Gaza by Hamas is now believed to be 129. Other people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.
