Israel says it mistakenly killed three Gaza hostages
Israel said its troops had killed three Gaza hostages after mistaking them for a threat, with the armed forces expressing "deep remorse" over a "tragic incident" that sparked protests in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military said Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa were shot during operations in a neighbourhood of Gaza City.
The trio was among those kidnapped during Hamas's raids into Israel on 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw an estimated 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the death of the three hostages as an "unbearable tragedy", while the White House called the incident a "tragic mistake".
As news of the incident spread, hundreds of people gathered at Israel's ministry of defence in the city of Tel Aviv in protest.
The demonstrators waved Israeli flags and brandished placards with the faces of some of the 129 people still held in Gaza. "Every day, a hostage dies," read one of the placards.
In retaliation for the worst attacks in its history, Israel launched an air and ground assault on Gaza, vowing to destroy Hamas, which rules the territory, and bring the hostages back. Hamas says the war has killed at least 18,800 people, and reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble.
In Tel Aviv, relatives of hostages called on the government to reach an accord to allow more people to be freed. "I am dying of fear," said Merav Svirsky, sister of Hamas-held hostage Itay Svirsky. "We demand a deal now."
In November, a short-lived truce agreement mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States saw more than 100 hostages freed in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
News platform Axios on Friday reported that the director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, David Barnea, was due to meet this weekend in Europe with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
Axios said the officials would discuss resuming negotiations for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
In the Gaza Strip, fierce fighting continued, with Hamas claiming they had blown up a house containing Israeli soldiers in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
News channel Al Jazeera said that one of its journalists, Samer Abudaqa, had been killed and another, Wael Dahdouh, had been wounded by "shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack" in Khan Yunis.
More than 60 journalists and media staff have died since the war began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
"We were reporting, we were filming, we had finished and we were with the civil defence, but when we were on the way back, they hit us with a missile," said Dahdouh, who lost his wife, two children and grandchild earlier in the war.