by Yuval Abraham at +972 Magazine
In mid-December, the Israeli army discovered the bodies of three of the hostages kidnapped from southern Israel to the Gaza Strip on October 7: the soldiers Ron Sherman and Nik Beizer, and the civilian Elia Toledano. Their families were initially informed that the three men had been killed in Hamas captivity, but Maayan, the mother of Sherman, soon declared otherwise.
“Ron was indeed murdered,” she wrote on her Facebook page on Jan. 16, but “not by Hamas.” Instead, she asserted, her son was killed by “bombings with poisonous gasses.”
Maayan made her claim after reading the inconclusive findings of a pathology report, presented to her by a delegation from the Israeli army’s casualties department and the 551st brigade, whose soldiers recovered Sherman’s body from Gaza. “The delegation told us that they don’t rule out gas poisoning as a result of IDF bombings, but they’re not certain,” she told +972 Magazine and Local Call.
According to two Israeli security sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call on the condition of anonymity, this wouldn’t be the first time that Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas’ network of underground tunnels in Gaza have killed people in this way. The army, they say, is well aware that bombs exploding in tunnels can disperse toxic gasses such as carbon monoxide.
In May 2021, for example, amid its broader assault named “Operation Guardian of the Walls,”…
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