“They’re all without shirts and they have a stick with a white cloth on it. The soldier feels threatened and opens fire. He declares that they’re terrorists. They (the Israeli forces) open fire. Two (hostages) are killed immediately,” the official told reporters in a phone briefing.

As if this wasn’t ridiculous enough, it gets better

“Immediately the battalion commander issues a ceasefire order, but again there’s another burst of fire towards the third figure and he also dies,” the official said. “This was against our rules of engagement,” he added.

So, to summarize: unarmed civilians waving a white flag were categorized as terrorists and two of them get executed immediately. The battalion commander then directly orders the soldiers to stop firing but those orders are being disobeyed and the last of the group is executed anyway.

That is not feeling “threatened”. That is bloodlust.