I was not expecting the killing of hostages that way. They had their shirts off, hands up, and white flag waving. There's no way of excusing their killing unless they were running at the troops and not following orders to stop.
Makes people wonder if this is a widespread issue that Innocents and surrendering militants are being killed that way.
I was doing some arm-chair speculation about IDF suspecting it was a way for Hamas to lure them in a trap. This You Tube report from Fox seems to hint to this possibility. There were 2 CNN reports that said IDF combat protocols has been "relaxed" due to lessons learned from previous engagements with Hamas. I believe Hamas as with other terrorist organizations are fully capable of pulling a stunt like this. Of course this is just pure speculation on my behalf but I personally find it hard to believe battle hardened and highly trained IDF soldiers would do this unless:
I hope it wasn't the case that their troops had gone rogue and were intentionally targeting Gaza civilians, that would really make things worse.
This is unfortunately possible. I believe in past wars this has happened and many not reported.
It's a fact that there was a incident like this at My Lai in Vietnam. A whole village of innocents were victims of soldiers seeking revenge. This horrible story was also enhanced by my Father in Law, who had not actively participated in the killings, but was part of a flanking unit protecting the actual unit that went into the village. During the investigations and trial of Lt. Calley, my Father-in-Law had to fly to the mainland to testify.
My Father-in-Law was a quiet man. The fact that he wanted to share the My Lai story with me was surprising. My Mother-in-law told me afterwards that he never talked about it to her or anyone after he came home from Vietnam. He passed away a short while after.
Yeah. War is hell. There are no winners. Only victims. Either dead or suffering quietly the nightmares that will never go away.