One of the hostages seized by Hamas gunmen during their attack on Israeli communities around Gaza on Oct. 7 was probably killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship that was responding to the attack, the military said on Friday.
\nFor several weeks, the military has been investigating reports that some of the 1,200 Israelis and foreign victims of the attack were killed by friendly fire during the chaos, in which more than 250 people were abducted as hostages.
\nIt said an inquiry into the events around the kidnapping of Efrat Katz, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities targeted by the attack, examined a variety of video evidence and testimony of witnesses.
\nIt said the evidence showed that one of the helicopter gunships fired at a vehicle in which gunmen were travelling and which the evidence also suggested had hostages in it.
\n\u201cAs a result of the fire, most of the terrorists manning the vehicle were killed, and most likely, Efrat Katz \u2026 was killed as well,\u201d it said in a statement.
\nIt said the investigation showed that the hostages could not be distinguished by existing surveillance systems.
\n\u201cThe commander of the air force did not find fault in the operation by the helicopter crew, who operated in compliance with the orders in a complex reality of war,\u201d it said.
\n(Reuters)helicopter gunship. hostage, Hamas gunmen, Israeli helicopter gunship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the hostages seized by Hamas gunmen during an attack on Israeli communities around Gaza was likely killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship that was responding to the attack. The military conducted an investigation into the kidnapping of Efrat Katz and found that the helicopter fired at a vehicle carrying gunmen and hostages, resulting in the death of most of the terrorists and possibly Efrat Katz. The investigation concluded that the hostages could not be distinguished by existing surveillance systems, and the air force commander did not find fault in the operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,383,2536,1776,2692,3343,1610,118,145,3092,298,5139,5138,1025,1419,299,5140,1522,3504,4371,345,1827,2503,3438,2687,2389,293,18],"class_list":["post-6990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-air","tag-attack","tag-communities","tag-compliance","tag-death","tag-events","tag-evidence","tag-fire","tag-gaza","tag-gunmen","tag-hamas","tag-hamas-gunmen","tag-hostage","tag-hostages","tag-investigation","tag-israel","tag-israeli-helicopter-gunship","tag-kidnapping","tag-military","tag-operation","tag-palestine","tag-statement","tag-testimony","tag-vehicle","tag-victims","tag-video","tag-war","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n