Call for investigation into killing of 3 Israelis by poison gas in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AA) – An Israeli newspaper has called for an independent investigation into the killing of three Israelis held by Hamas in Gaza with poison gas.

Sergeant Ron Sherman,19, was captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack.

In mid-December, the Israeli army said that it had recovered the body of Sherman and two others 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 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 said that “it was not possible to determine what killed the three hostages.”

Hamas is believed to have been holding nearly 136 Israelis since its attack on October 7.

Israel has since launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 25,295 Palestinians and injuring 63,000.

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.