Yes!
The fact that he doesn't realize he's blind and took a misstep in total innocence does not nullify the laws of physics.
Sure, miracles sometimes occur.
But we are not supposed to rely on miracles.
Likewise, spiritual physics exist.
The Spiritual Physics of Tinok Shenishba Parallel the Physical Physics of a Blind Person
When they stumble or walk into objects, they say, "Hey, that's just part of life. It's unavoidable."
(This is somewhat true. Even people with perfect vision stumble or knock into objects at times. But a blind person with no assistance stumbles a lot more.)
They know nothing about seeing-eye dogs, canes, or sight-restoring surgery.
Likewise, the spiritual physics of a tinok shenishba exist despite their blameless status.
And just like a blind man who (thinking he walks a straight, safe path) unwittingly walks off a cliff will still fall to his death according to the laws of physics, a tinok shenishba who unwittingly walks a spiritual path leading to a "cliff" will still fall according to the laws of spiritual physics.
Of course, a miracle can save either one.
But we don't rely on miracles.
A Potential Global Chilul Hashem
With one hostage actually an Arab, another looking as if he could be, and the fair-skinned guy with red hair and blue eyes possibly an Arab (some Arabs have blue eyes and red hair, though their skin tends to be reddish-tan), their cries of help in Hebrew ("Hatzilu!") without any other indication of their non-terrorist status...well, there was no verification for the battle-weary soldiers who feared their lives depended on quick action.
Furthermore, the soldiers already lost some of their unit from similar deceptions contrived by Hamas terrorists.
Yet an eye-opening post from Tomer Devorah pulled back the veil even further upon that tinok shenishba status:
...thousands of Christians prayed over Yonatan and Ido Shamriz, the brothers of Alon Shamriz, one of the three escaped hostages who were killed by Israeli soldiers. [Here @ 55:32 - 57:22] And yes, they did invoke the name of their false deity at the end! [@ 1:01:45]
Had this young man been rescued, the credit would have been given to this false god and that message would have gone out to the world in the millions. Possibly even tens or hundreds of millions of Christians, all of them giving thanks to the false god and their faith in the false god thereby strengthened.
https://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-pressure-is-not-letting-up.html
And like a misstep off a cliff, it ends in tragedy.
Families of hostages suffer feelings of terrible powerlessness and a compulsion to help their captive loved ones in any way possible.
Despite the publicity around Ori Magidish's release immediately after her family invested in tremendous spiritual efforts along with other miraculous stories, the Shamriz family were pulled after seductive Christian groups, who flew them around the world to meet with supposedly influential people in an effort to help free Alon.
In their innocence, the family had no idea of the terrible chilul Hashem produced the mass "prayer" service.
Nonetheless, as written in the above excerpt, the spiritual physics of the matter mean there was no way (short of a bizarre miracle) Hashem could release Alon alive without increasing the chilul Hashem by at least 100,000%.
Despite their innocence and the good intentions of both the brothers and the Christians, it's likely the "prayer" service sealed a decree of death against Alon.
(I don't know anything to theorize about the other 2 hostages, but it's a big tragedy that affected them too.)
The Other Blameless Victims
Though it's easy enough to excuse the tragic shooting by noting the soldiers' physical and emotional exhaustion, the fact they just lost their officers in a deceptive ambush (similar to the scenario with the 3 hostages), the well-known trickery of terrorists speaking Hebrew to lure unsuspecting Jews, and the very real & immediate risk to their lives if the trio hadn't been true hostages...the truth is, the fact that after the publicized mass Christian participation on Alon's behalf, Alon could NOT have been saved.
In other words, the soldiers had nothing to do with his death.
The mother of one of the hostages proclaimed she refuses to blame the soldiers for her son's death.
This is a generous and healing act toward those soldiers.
And she's right.
They are 100% not to blame for all the reasons stated in this post and the previous one.
And I wish they could know so as not to suffer from terrible pangs of conscious and PTSD.
A Portal for Kochot HaTumah?
The kochot hatumah (forces of impurity) are very real.
While news of the Buddha statue at the Nova party spread right away, it took around a month before I actually saw a clip of it.
My jaw dropped when I saw this massive multi-story structure of a massive Buddha sitting on a pedestal.
Until that moment, I had no idea it featured so prominently at that party. Initially, I assumed it was a little decorative statue.
But in actuality, it looked like a gigantic creepy demonic idol.
Most of the partygoers wouldn't have known anything about it, beyond knowing its name.
So who went to all the trouble of creating this thing and setting it up there? And why?
Because Buddhism utilizes kochot hatumah (whether or not its practioners realize it), it activates a spiritual danger, which can manifest as physical danger too.
(The unwholesome behavior and music, combined with intoxication at that party, contribute to the kochot hatumah.)
In other words, according to spiritual physics, it created a powerful tumah, of which the attendees had no idea.
Likewise, Christianity derives from pagan religions, which they combined with a confused interpretation of the Torah.
You can see this in the difference between Christians in America and Christians in Europe.
Early American Christians observed a bare-bones Christianity to the point that they didn't even celebrate the December holiday because it was never mentioned in the Torah or gospels.
(The celebration and its pagan-based customs only came later, around the 19th century, via European immigrants — mainly, those from Germany.)
And not all American Christians believed in a trinity or even the divinity of their founder, as evidenced by President Thomas Jefferson's bible, in which he inked out all references to Otoh Ish as anything more than a very human man.
America's past success derived from its focus on the Ten Commandments and the books of Proverbs/Mishlei and Ecclesiastes/Kohelet, along with other values found within the Torah.
Due to their inaccessibility to true understanding, they misinterpreted verses and ideas, leading to errors in applying Biblical Law to colonial life in America. But they tried.
And until the influence of the European immigrants, American Christians seemed on their way to becoming bona fide Bnei Noach.
But most didn't make it that far in the end.
Instead, belief in a trinity revived to the point that Christians use the name of their founder and "God" interchangeably.
However, when they pray to their very human (and very dead) founder, where are those prayers going?
When they claim to have accepted their very human (and very dead) founder into their hearts, what actually went in there instead?
For example, I remember a bunch of my classmates going on a weekend retreat with a church youth group.
Some of them were very committed, others less so.
But they returned with stories of how one male classmate (who stood near me as they told the story) got demonically possessed one night during the retreat. He started shaking uncontrollably and other things I no longer remember.
The pastor in charge gathered everyone around to pray over him and the pastor did other ritualistic stuff meant to help in exorcisms, and the entity apparently left.
At that time, I did not believe for one minute that Jeff suffered a demonic possession along with an exorcism.
I glanced at him doubtfully. Having known him since we were both little, I searched his face for a sign that he was in on some kind of prank with the pastor. But Jeff insisted it happened as they said and it frightened him.
He seemed sincere.
I chalked it all up to some kind of group hysteria or group hypnosis, with Jeff as the focus for some reason, and mentally dismissed it without challenging them, just as I grew mentally dismissing their belief in Santa or their trinity without challenging them about it.
Although once in fifth grade, I couldn't tolerate a classmate's belief in her church being located in Heaven. Yet she kept insisting it was. That pushed me over the edge.
"Oh, come on, Catherine," I said. "If it's in Heaven, how you drive there every Sunday? Does your car go UP?"
Catherine just stuck her nose up with a pout and refused to answer.
No one else came to her defense or ganged up on me about because she was Mormon and mainstream Christians consider Mormon beliefs wrong and nutty. (Although Mormons are the nicest Christians in the US as a group.)
But in addition to all the above, Christian obsession with satan and satanism also always struck me as weird.
Knowing what I know now of Hollywood and the media behind the scenes, I see some foundation to their fears.
But they always held a superficial understanding of the deeper problems and an equally superficial — and useless — solution based on their religious misunderstandings.
They do actually encounter what they consider demonic possessions and events. Like in my rationalist assimilated Jewish community, such things never happened.
But to Christians, it's a common thing. Not a daily or weekly thing, but it's definitely something they run into at times.
Knowing what I know now, I wonder whether their beliefs open a kind of portal to kochot hatumah.
Again, where are their prayers and energy going when they direct them to Osoh Ish?
What are they accepting into their hearts when they claim its him?
And is that what happened when a group of thousands "prayed" over the brothers for the release of their captive brother?
Like with the massive Buddha at the party, did certain spiritual physics combine together in a lethal way?
Who is Cruel and Who is Compassionate?
Despite their innocence, it would hurt the brothers to hear they may have davka caused the death of their brother and the 2 other hostages.
Probably, they would see this conjecture as "cruel."
On the other hand, if we don't acknowledge the spiritual physics and adjust our behavior accordingly, the Rambam calls us "cruel."
Why?
Because if going down a certain path harmed others, then continuing down that path will continue to harm others even more.
So if others go down the road of joining up with false spiritual belief systems, then they too could cause death and disaster.
And knowing the full story here could prevent others from making the same mistake.
Similarly, it's cruel to allow the soldiers to feel blamed for the incident when it actually had nothing to do with them.
May Hashem help us all do teshuvah and please bring the Geula speedily b'rachamim.