Israeli newspaper calls for investigation into killing of 3 hostages by poison gas in Gaza

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) – An Israeli newspaper called on Monday for an independent investigation into the killing of three hostages with poison gas in the Gaza Strip.

Sergeant Ron Sherman,19, was captured by Hamas during a cross-border attack on Oct. 7.

In mid-December, the Israeli army said that it had recovered the body of Sherman and two other hostages from a Hamas tunnel in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hamas said the three were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.

One month after recovering their bodies, the Israeli army gave the families of the three hostages the pathology report and a report on how the bodies were found, without specifying if the army used poison gas during their attacks in Gaza.

“All these questions must be investigated by an outside body – one that will receive all the necessary information from the army and the government and present its conclusions to the public,” Haaretz newspaper said.

“We cannot wait until after the war ends to carry out this vital investigation.”

Sherman’s mother has openly accused the army of intentionally killing her son.

"The inquiry's findings: Ron was indeed murdered," she wrote on Facebook. "Not by Hamas … not by stray bullets and not in an exchange of fire. This was deliberate murder. Bombing with poison gas … Oh yes, and they found that Ron also had several crushed fingers, apparently due to his desperate attempts to escape the poison grave."

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, for his part, said that “it was not possible to determine what killed the three hostages.”

Hamas is believed to be holding nearly 136 Israeli hostages following its cross-border attack on Oct. 7.

Israel has since launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 25,295 Palestinians and injuring 63,000. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio