‘Our bombs killed hostages’ in Gaza, says former Israeli army chief

Herzi Halevi, Israel’s former military chief, acknowledged that Israeli air strikes killed captives held by Palestinian groups in Gaza. He said the forces did not know the captives were at the targeted locations. The admission matters because Israeli authorities had previously declined to address accusations that military strikes killed captives.

Halevi also defended military pressure as a factor that helped secure the release of captives. Most of the 251 people taken on 7 October 2023 were later returned alive through prisoner exchanges with Hamas. His comments therefore presented pressure and exchanges as two parts of the release story.

The admission adds to earlier reporting about captivity deaths. Maariv reported in October 2025, citing Israeli officials, that many captives were killed by Israeli strikes, especially early in the war. Halevi also called the 7 October attack a preventable failure, while rejecting claims of internal betrayal.

A hostage is a person held to force a government, group, or other party to take or avoid an action. Hostage-taking is prohibited under international humanitarian law. In this conflict, the people seized during the Hamas-led attack are described in the article as captives or hostages because Palestinian groups held them in Gaza.

A prisoner of war is generally a captured member of an opposing armed force, or another person covered by prisoner-of-war rules, who is detained because of participation in an international armed conflict. The purpose is normally to prevent a captured fighter from returning to combat, not to use that person as leverage. Civilian captives do not automatically become prisoners of war.

The labels can affect legal treatment, but all detainees must be treated humanely. The article focuses on hostages and captives, their release through exchanges, and deaths in captivity. It does not provide a legal classification for every person taken on 7 October.

The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 resulted in 251 people being taken captive. This figure is the article’s central measure of the hostage crisis and establishes the scale of the people held by Palestinian groups in Gaza.

Most of those captives were later returned alive through prisoner exchanges with Hamas. The article estimates that approximately 87 died in captivity in Gaza or were taken there after they had already died. That wording combines deaths during captivity with people transported to Gaza after dying.

The figure also gives context to Halevi’s admission that Israeli bombs killed some hostages. It helps explain why questions about military strikes, prisoner exchanges, and the treatment of captives remain significant. The article does not provide a separate breakdown of how many died from each cause.

Prisoner exchanges with Hamas were the clearest route by which most captives were returned alive. The article does not detail the terms or timing of those exchanges, but it identifies them as the mechanism behind most of the releases from Gaza.

Halevi separately claimed that military pressure on Gaza helped secure the release of captives. His argument is that sustained military action created conditions that contributed to freeing people, alongside negotiations involving exchanges. He did not provide figures showing how many releases resulted from pressure rather than exchange agreements.

The two approaches remain linked in the article’s account. Exchanges directly brought captives home, while Halevi described pressure as helping make releases possible. At the same time, he acknowledged a grave cost: Israeli bombs killed some hostages because forces did not know they were at the targets.

When a military strikes without knowing that hostages are at a target, the attack can kill the very people it seeks to recover or protect. It can also destroy information, damage rescue prospects, and intensify disputes over military conduct. Halevi’s admission shows that the danger is not theoretical.

The concrete example in the article is his statement that Israeli bombs killed hostages because Israeli forces did not know they were there. The key mechanism was incomplete information: the strike planners lacked knowledge that captives were being held at the target. The article does not identify the locations, dates, or number killed in those strikes.

The consequence is both human and political. Approximately 87 captives died in captivity or were taken to Gaza after already dying. Israeli authorities had previously declined to address accusations about strikes, while Maariv later reported that many captives died in Israeli attacks, especially early in the war.

The Hannibal Directive was described in the article as a controversial order designed to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even when following it could risk killing those soldiers. Its purpose was to stop a capture from being completed, rather than accept the captive’s removal.

Israeli media reports said the military invoked the directive on 7 October and applied it along the Gaza-Israel boundary during the first hours of the Hamas-led assault. The reported use was controversial because the order placed preventing capture alongside, or potentially above, the safety of the person being captured.

That controversy became sharper after Halevi acknowledged that Israeli bombs killed hostages without forces knowing they were present. The article does not establish that the directive caused those specific deaths. It reports the directive’s alleged use separately, as part of wider scrutiny of the military’s actions during the attack.

The rules of armed conflict are designed to limit harm during military operations. They require parties to distinguish civilians and civilian objects from military targets. They also prohibit hostage-taking and require people in captivity to be treated humanely. These protections apply even during intense fighting.

Before an attack, forces must take feasible precautions to verify the target and reduce civilian harm. Attacks expected to cause excessive civilian damage compared with the anticipated military advantage are prohibited. If reliable information shows that hostages or civilians are at a target, commanders must reassess the attack and, where required, cancel or suspend it.

The article does not list these rules, but Halevi’s admission illustrates why they matter. Israeli forces struck locations without knowing captives were present, and some hostages died. The article also reports the controversial use of an order that risked killing captured Israeli soldiers, raising questions about how protection rules were applied.