Israel’s military said Friday that it had mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages during its ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

The military's chief spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Israeli troops had erroneously identified the hostages as a threat and fired on them Friday.

He said it was not clear whether the hostages had escaped their captors or had been abandoned. Their deaths occurred in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, the scene of bloody battles between Israel’s military and Hamas militants. He said the army expressed “deep sorrow” and was investigating.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the hostages’ deaths an “unbearable tragedy” and vowed to continue “with a supreme effort to return all the hostages home safely.”

Fighting in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas raged on Friday. The Israeli military said its troops had destroyed a Hamas command-and-control hub in Gaza's Sheijaia district and had conducted a “targeted raid” on militant infrastructure in Khan Younis.

The Al Jazeera television network said an Israeli strike Friday killed one of its cameramen, Samer Abudaqa, while he was covering the aftermath of an airstrike on a school.

Earlier Friday, the Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers had recovered the bodies of two soldiers and one civilian hostage taken in the Hamas terror attack on October 7.

US envoy

During a visit to Israel, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was urging Israel to use more precise targeting of Hamas leaders in Gaza, rather than widespread bombing and ground operations.

“There will be a transition to another phase of this war, one that is focused in more precise ways on targeting the leadership and on intelligence-driven operations,” he told reporters Friday following two days of meetings with Israeli officials.

“When exactly that happens and under exactly what conditions will be a continuing intensive discussion between the United States and Israel,” Sullivan said. “The conditions and the timing for that was obviously a subject of conversation I had” with Netanyahu, other Israeli government leaders and military commanders.

Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant told Sullivan on Thursday that it would take “more than several months" to destroy Hamas, which he said has been building its infrastructure “under the ground and above the ground" in Gaza for more than a decade.

"But we will win, and we will destroy them,” Gallant said.

Sullivan declined to answer when asked Friday whether the U.S. would hold back military aid if Israel did not reduce civilian casualties, saying the best way to reach an agreement was in private discussions.

So far, the Israel Defense Forces have resisted increasing global pressure to curb the Gaza offensive.

Sullivan also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. During the meeting, Abbas called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and increased aid for the enclave.

The Middle East has been a tinderbox since Iranian-backed Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people while taking about 240 people hostage, according to Israel. Israel's retaliatory strikes and ground offensive have killed more than 18,000 Palestinians, a large percentage of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

WHO aid

The World Health Organization welcomed the opening Friday of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza but said more needed to be done to ensure that essential medical supplies reached hospitals in dire need across the enclave.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza, described the opening as "good news" but said there were hospitals that were difficult to reach in the north of the enclave that still needed essential medical supplies.

"How can we make sure that these [aid] trucks can go everywhere in Gaza, not just to the south but also to the north?" Peeperkorn asked.

Israel approved the entry of 200 trucks of aid into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Humanitarian Office said Friday that tens of thousands of homeless Palestinians in Gaza who had crammed into Rafah since December 3 were struggling in extremely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, raising concerns about the spread of disease.

While reiterating U.S. support for Israel and its military response to the deadly Hamas attack against Israel two months ago, U.S. President Joe Biden and other officials have expressed concern about the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has defended its tactics, saying it is taking unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, such as ordering people to evacuate areas where it plans to carry out military operations.

Israel's military also has blamed Hamas for intentionally operating in populated areas.

The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency says nearly 1.9 million people, about 85% of Gaza's population, have been forced from their homes, with more than 1.1 million currently registered at the agency's shelters in central and southern Gaza. The agency said the average shelter is nine times over its intended capacity. (VOA)

•PHOTO: FILE - Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari speaks in Tel Aviv, Oct. 18, 2023. He said Dec. 15, 2023, that Israeli troops had mistakenly identified three hostages as a threat and had shot them in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah.

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