Israeli soldiers and special operations police rescued four hostages from Gaza on Saturday amid an intense air and ground assault and flew them back to Israel by helicopter to reunite with their families. The news was greeted with jubilation in Israel, where anxiety over the fate of the approximately 120 remaining captives has been growing after eight months of war.
Residents of the city of Nuseirat, where the hostages were held, reported heavy shelling during the rescue operation. Khalil al-Daqran, an official at a hospital in the city, told reporters that dozens of Palestinians had died and that the hospital’s wards and hallways were filled with wounded people.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters that the rescue mission took place around 11 a.m. Saturday, when forces located the four hostages in two separate buildings where they were being held by Hamas militants. He said Israeli forces came under fire but managed to remove the hostages in two helicopters. A special forces police officer died.
The freed hostages – Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 – were kidnapped by Palestinian militants from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, when around 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, Israel says. All four were in good medical condition and were taken to a hospital in Israel for further examination, Israeli authorities said in a statement.
The fate of the hostages has been the source of intense political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid broader criticism that his government, for its own reasons, is in no hurry to end the conflict or address the issue of who should govern Gaza after the war.
Given the hostage rescue, Benny Gantz, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet who threatened to leave over Netanyahu’s refusal to talk about a postwar plan for Gaza, indefinitely postponed a news conference scheduled for Saturday night. , citing “recent events.” “
Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli air
The force struck Nuseirat during the rescue to allow Israeli forces to extract the hostages safely.
“This was a mission in the heart of a civilian neighborhood, where Hamas had intentionally hidden between houses where there were civilians and armed militants guarding hostages,” Hagari said.
Videos showed people running for cover as bombs fell. After the airstrikes, streets became so cluttered with debris that ambulances and emergency services in central Gaza were unable to respond to many calls to transport the wounded to hospitals, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. .
Video from inside Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital near Nuseirat, shared by the ministry, showed chaotic scenes as medical staff struggled to treat bloodied victims lying side by side on the ground. Two men held intravenous bags while, next to them, an injured man, his face bandaged, writhed under a blanket.
Reports on the number of dead and wounded varied greatly in the confusion that followed the attack. Two Gaza health officials said more than 200 people were killed in the attacks in Nuseirat, including women and children. They did not say how many of the dead were militants.
Hagari said the death toll should be “less than 100,” based on information he had seen. It was not possible to verify any of the numbers.
In a post on Telegram, Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, said Israel killed some hostages during its rescue mission on Saturday. His claims could not be independently verified. He also suggested that Hamas would take punitive measures against hostages remaining in Gaza.
The news of the hostages’ rescue was received with joy and relief throughout Israel.
Major Israeli television stations switched to live coverage of the rescue and its aftermath, breaking the usual silent and pre-recorded programming typical of Saturday.
Spontaneous celebrations broke out across the country and Israeli television broadcast footage of the meetings. In Tel Aviv, a lifeguard on the beach. announced the news of the rescue before a crowd that cheered him from the lifeguard tower, according to posts on social media.
Ms. Argamani’s kidnapping, in particular, became a symbol of the brutality of the Hamas attack on October 7. In a video from the scene that day, the Palestinian attackers can be seen taking Ms. Argamani away on a motorcycle as she cries. She asks for help and approaches her boyfriend, Avinatan Or. Her fate remains unknown.
After her rescue, Ms. Argamani spoke with Mr. Netanyahu. “I’m so excited, it’s been so long since I heard Hebrew,” she said in a recording of the call released by the prime minister’s office.
In a videotaped statement, Yaakov Argamani, Ms. Argamani’s father, thanked everyone who participated in securing his daughter’s freedom, including Mr. Netanyahu.
“But we cannot forget that there are still 120 hostages who must be released,” Argamani said, calling on Israelis to join a weekly demonstration in solidarity with the hostages remaining in Gaza. “We must make every effort to bring them here to Israel with their families.”
President Biden said Saturday in Paris that he welcomed “the safe rescue of four hostages who were returned to their families in Israel,” adding: “We will not stop working until all hostages return home and a ceasefire is reached.” , and it is essential that it happens.” Biden spoke after meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, praised what he called a “complex operation” carried out by Israeli soldiers, special forces and intelligence, who he said had “operated with extraordinary courage under intense fire.”
Israeli intelligence officers, Hagari said, worked for weeks in an attempt to assemble the pieces necessary for the operation to take place. Herzi Halevi, chief of the military General Staff, as well as the head of Israel’s internal intelligence service, gave the final go-ahead Saturday morning.
The Israeli police special forces unit, Yamam, was also involved, and one of its members, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, was seriously wounded in combat and later died from his wounds, an Israeli police spokesman said.
There was also an American role. A team of U.S. hostage recovery officials stationed in Israel assisted the Israeli military’s efforts by providing intelligence and other support, a U.S. official said, speaking without attribution to discuss continuing operations.
The last successful raid to free hostages was in February, when Israeli special operations forces raided a building in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and freed two captives held by Hamas.
The first hostage rescued alive by Israeli security forces was the soldier. Ori Megidish, a soldier. His rescue took place in late October, three weeks after the Hamas-led attack and days after Israel began its large-scale ground invasion of northern Gaza. Private Megidish, then 19, was kidnapped at the Nahal Oz military base, along Israel’s border with Gaza, where she served as a field observer.
While the release of the hostages was cause for celebration on Saturday, it would seem an unlikely scenario to recover the approximately 120 who remain captive. That would seem to require a political agreement, which is what Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will seek to achieve when he travels to the Middle East in the coming days.
The secretary is expected to push a plan calling for a temporary ceasefire that would result in a permanent truce, the release of hostages and an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
The trip will include stops in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Qatar and will be Blinken’s eighth trip to the region since the conflict began. In a statement on Friday, the State Department said Blinken would urge an agreement on the ceasefire proposal to “relieve suffering in Gaza, allow for a massive increase in humanitarian assistance, and allow Palestinians to return to their neighborhoods.” .
Isabel Kershner and Adam Rasgon contributed reports from Jerusalem, Yara Bayoumy from London and Michael D. Shear from Paris.