Israeli army gassed my son, mother of slain Israeli soldier says

 

Sergeant Ron Sherman

Haaretz: Pictures of the bodies showed that the perpetrators were not Hamas, but it was the army that killed the prisoners

A wave of doubts surround the families of the dead Israelis, who constantly demand to know how their sons and daughters were killed. The Hebrew newspaper Haaretz indicates in a report translated by the “Trenches” website that the family of one of the prisoners accused the Israeli army of killing their son: “The results of the investigation: Ron was actually killed... not by Hamas. Not by stray bullets and not in an exchange of fire. This was murder. intentionally by the army.”

A few days before the grim news arrived that her son had died in Hamas captivity, Dr. Maayan Sherman sensed that something bad had happened. “The strange thing is that I had been relatively calm until that moment,” she recalls. “We knew from the videos that Ron had been taken alive and that he was unharmed, and after that we were told that he had shown signs of life.”

However, in an interview on Kan 11 television, which was broadcast on October 31 before she was officially notified of Ron's death, she said: "I fear that they have been abandoned. That a ground operation will be carried out that will end with the deaths of many. What worries me is not Hamas but the government of Israel."

Sherman's gut feeling led her to meet with Gal Hirsch, the prisoner coordinator, and with Varda Pomerantz, the former head of the IDF's casualty division, who now worked with Hirsch. They both tried to calm her fears. “They told me again that the terrorists take care of the captives, that they are a safety net for them and that everything is fine,” Sherman says. “But I had a very strong bad feeling.”

Members of the unit bringing the bad news arrived on December 14: “They told me that Ron had been killed in Hamas captivity, that's the wording of the notice, and they asked us if we wanted to do an autopsy. Because that would mean postponing the funeral until after the weekend, I said no. To finish it already. I also didn't want to know exactly how he died. After all, they said Hamas killed him, and I know how cruel they were, so why did I need to know about the abuse he suffered? Whether they beheaded him or shot him? And they buried him in a regular military burial.”

However, from the moment the horrific news arrived, his mother was constantly haunted by the idea that her son had been killed by terrorists. "When I went to sleep, I saw in my mind how Ron was being abused. When you're told he was killed, and you don't know how, you imagine the worst."

But two weeks later, it became clear that there were no indications that Ron had actually been killed.

Sherman: “The pathologist came to see us. It turned out that although they [the army] did not do an autopsy [after recovering the body], they did do a CT scan of the body, examined it from all directions and found no injuries — no gunshot wounds or knife wounds. "No shrapnel, no fractures or external injuries, no signs of strangulation or blast injury. We received a detailed report, which was really shocking for me as a mother, because by that time the body was a month old, but the cause of death was not found."

On the eve of their demobilization, Israeli soldiers talk about the fighting, the hostages and why they entered Gaza. “We have lost everything. The pain is infinite. Only without Netanyahu will there be hope.”

Sherman was surprised that the Israeli army approached her on its initiative. Regarding whether this was actually the army’s idea or the coroner’s idea, Dr. Alon Crispin, director of the National Center for Forensic Medicine, who signed the report that the family received, answered: “It was an agreement between me and the Israeli army.” He explained to Haaretz: “I contacted the Sherman family because I believed that, as citizens, they deserved to know directly what happened to their son, and not through documents and bureaucracy.” He declined to say more.

Since receiving the news, Sherman has been angry, making accusations and demanding answers. Sherman also accuses the government of abandoning her son twice: once because of its responsibility for the October 7 disaster, and again because it abandoned those being held hostage in the Gaza Strip. Regarding the IDF, she suspects that it was involved in causing the death of her son and two other hostages.

In a Facebook post, Sherman accused the Israeli military of killing her son with poison gas that was pumped into the tunnel. “Investigation results: Ron was indeed murdered,” she wrote. Not by Hamas... not by stray bullets and not in an exchange of fire. This was premeditated murder. Bombardment with poisonous gas.” She added that a source in the Israeli army admitted that this was one of the possible possibilities for the death of the three prisoners.