MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine hostage mistakenly killed by Israeli forces

Alon Lulu Shamriz, 26, was a computer engineering student

According to Buenos Aires media, one of the Hamas hostages Israel mistakenly killed had Argentine roots.

“During combat in Shejaiya (in northern Gaza), the IDF mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat. As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of “an unbearable tragedy” after the victims' identities were confirmed.

The Argentinean Alon Lulu Shamriz, 26, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, died after the failed IDF operation in Shejaiya, confirmed the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. He was a computer engineering student whose parents hailed from Iran. He was killed alongside Yotam Haim, 28, and Samar Talalka, 25. They were abducted during Hamas' Oct. 7 raid in southern Israel.

These casualties bring to 22 the number of confirmed hostages killed, out of some 250 people forcibly taken by the terrorist group into the Gaza Strip. While 110 have been released, the whereabouts of 118 others remain unknown.
Israeli authorities also reported Friday that among the bodies of its own servicemen who had been taken hostage by the Palestinian Islamist movement was that of Ron Sherman, the 19-year-old grandnephew of Argentine singer-songwriter León Gieco.

“During an operation in Gaza, the bodies of hostages Nik Beizer and Ron Sherman were recovered by IDF soldiers and transported back to Israel,” the IDF said on social media. Sherman was doing compulsory military service near the Gaza Strip when he was captured. That day he sent a message to his family: “I can't talk anymore. I am ready. It's the end. I love you all very much. Goodbye.”

Speaking to TN, Alex Sherman, Ron's father, said that the last contact they had with Ron was “on Saturday [October 7] at 6 o'clock, when he called and told about the shooting and the bombing. He heard screams and orders in Arabic. At that moment they realized that Hamas was attacking.”

“As a musician who has always been committed to peace and today overwhelmed by the extreme situation in the Middle East, by the blindness and hardness of politicians and by these acts of terror where the victims are always the people, both Palestinians, and Israelis, I ask for a peaceful solution to this millenary and cruel conflict,” Gieco said when the crisis broke out.

“I pray for the return of all the hostages to their places and in my particular case I pray for the return of my nephew, Ron Sherman, for the love that unites us as a family and for universal love,” he added.