The accidental killing of Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer al-Talalqa by gunfire from our forces managed to stand out and shock as an unacceptable horror, even in a war that began with the most monstrous atrocity and has provided grief, pain and tragedy since October 7 in overflowing doses.
Naturally, the catastrophe led to criticism, questions, investigations and attempts to draw lessons in order to prevent a recurrence of such a terrible scenario in the continuation of the fighting. Debriefing is of course necessary, learning is critical, and criticism – insofar as it is constructive – is a tool to prevent future catastrophes.
But one thing is inappropriate, and that is dropping the dossier on the fighters and pointing the finger of blame at those who committed the most tragic of operational mistakes.
The underlying reason for this is obvious. In English, incidents are referred to as an army inadvertently shooting at a colleague whom he thought to be a predator, paradoxically referred to as "friendly fire". With all the sorrow of the loss and operational failure, there is no friendlier fire than that of our fighters, who bravely endanger themselves not only to defend the state and its citizens, but also as part of their overarching efforts to secure the release of the hostages. Even a trigger-happy hand in a brutal war zone such as Gaza and its traps needs sharpening and refreshing.
But beyond the obvious, the tragedy of the abductees who were killed also encapsulates a fact that demands, alongside the incisive investigation, to give an embrace and support to the fighters involved in the incident and full backing for their activities.
In modern times, and perhaps from time immemorial, fighters of no army, certainly the Western army of a democratic state, have faced a similar situation.
There were armies that were forced to fight evil in crowded built-up areas, fighters around the world sacrificed their lives in the face of tunneling systems in the past and fire traps of various and strange kinds. But a battlefield involving a wholesale and disturbed number of abducted civilians, women, the elderly, young and children, is a unique case of Hamas, which has created a new peak of military evil in a malicious and unprecedented way.
There is no combat doctrine that prepares combatants for such a situation, there are no past cases to learn and learn lessons from them, and there is no human mind that is forced to weigh the presence of hostages walking around in the heart of the most difficult battle zones that war can offer.
A battlefield involving a wholesale and disturbed number of abducted civilians, women, the elderly, young and children, is a unique case for Hamas, which has created a new peak of military evil in a malicious and unprecedented way
The IDF fighters at the front and the citizens of the state standing on the home front are the first to be forced to deal with this new Hamas-made hellish section. No one will be surprised if, in the future, too, its murderous terrorists make use of abductees to challenge our fighters with more horrific "innovations" that there is no way to get used to or create a fixed formula for dealing with them.
In the face of these, and out of a heartbroken and angry at the loss and failure, it is appropriate to address our heroes who fight mainly with compassion and understanding. The experience they faced, and may, God forbid, have to endure in the future, is a historical experience that they are the first to experience, and there is nothing bitterer than it.
The same is true of ourselves. Debriefing and learning - yes, judgment and anger towards our fighters and ourselves - no.
In our current reality, compassion is a critical commodity for the war effort.
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