Has the Israeli Military Solved its Mission to Ensure the Safety of the Hostages?” Comment on Halevi and Shejaiye

The hostages are believed to have fled to another building more than half a mile away. A day before they were killed, the military identified signs saying “SOS” and “Help, 3 hostages” in the area. The blue barrels that Hamas has used to hold explosives were spotted by the military.

The entire chain of command feels responsible for what happened, as well as the fact that the hostages should not have been shot. It was carried out under severe conditions and under a long term threat.

In a statement included in the report on Thursday, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Herzl Halevi, said the military “failed in its mission to rescue the hostages.”

The Lookout soldiers were in a different place when they saw the figure. They killed him because they failed to hear the orders to fire because of noise from a nearby tank. He was later identified as Yotam Haim, 28.

The commanding officers ordered the troops to hold fire so they could identify the third man, who had fled inside of a building. Cries in Hebrew of “Save me!” and “They are shooting at me!” were heard. The officers yelled “Come toward us” after they repeated their orders to hold their fire.

The lookout soldier who killed the first two hostages — Alon Shamriz, 26, and Samer Talalka, 24 — was operating with a line of sight obscured by a structure, suggesting that he may have not seen their white flag.

The account that was released late on Thursday consists of a 10-bullet statement, along with photos from the ground and air and a map showing the locations of important to the hostages’ lives. It shows the soldiers involved in the fighting engaged in intense and long fighting and as extremely wary of Hamas ruses. Just days before the hostages were shot, two senior Israeli commanders and seven other soldiers were killed in a Hamas ambush in the same area, Shejaiye.

There was a gap between the shooting of the first two hostages and the killing of the third hostage, in which the commander had urged him to come out of hiding, according to new details released by the Israeli military.

Ms. Schem, a 21-year-old Israeli French citizen from Shoham, Israel, was kidnapped by Hamas after fleeing the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel. The first video of any of the hostages was released early in the war.

The account by Ms. Schem, who has talked about her 55 days in captivity with two television stations and in a photo essay published in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, has touched a particular nerve in Israel.

It is similar to other hostages who had a lack of food and water. But her interviews and written account, which could not be independently confirmed, have offered the most detailed look at what life was like in captivity. Her family did not agree to an interview with The New York Times.

One day as Ms. Schem was getting her hair done, her captor attempted to cut her hair with scissors. She took almost two weeks to sort it out because of her injured arm, after she screamed at him.

She told Israeli television that at one point her captor called her over to watch footage on television of her mother speaking at a news conference, saying he did so “to hurt me,” but that she nevertheless drew strength from seeing her mother.

She said she consoled her captor only to play the game after he learned of his friends’ deaths. It was close by other times.