Israel said on Saturday that it had successfully released four hostages who had been abducted in an attack led by Hamas on October 7. This operation was the largest of its kind since the war with Hamas started in Gaza.
The hostages were freed under heavy fighting in central Gaza. On Saturday, numerous assaults killed at least 55 people, including children, as residents rushed for shelter, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The soldiers claimed to have rescued Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, in two different areas during a complicated special daytime operation in the center of Nuseirat in Gaza.
Since her kidnapping during a northern Israel music festival, Argamani has been a prominent captive figure. Images of Argamani’s scared visage went viral after the abduction footage surfaced, showing her held between two men on a motorcycle with one arm extended and the other pinned down while she cries out, “Don’t kill me!”
Liora, who is in the latter stages of brain cancer, made a heartbreaking plea in April to see her daughter one last time before she passes away.
The Oct. 7 incident, which started the Israel-Hamas war, resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 persons and the abduction of 250 hostages. A week-long truce in November resulted in the release of around half. There are more than 130 hostages still held, according to Israel, and a fifth of them are thought to be dead. The government is becoming more divided over how to safely return them.
The conflict in Gaza has been going on for eight months with over 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians. As a result, there is increasing international pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties in the conflict. The rescue operation comes at a time when this pressure is reaching a boiling point. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be back in the Middle East next week to try to get Israel and Hamas to move on with their cease-fire talks, which have seemingly hit a snag.
The battle has blocked the passage of food, medicine, and other necessities, causing widespread starvation among the Palestinian people. Midway through July, more than one million people in Gaza may face the gravest kind of famine, according to United Nations agencies.
With Saturday’s operation, the number of freed detainees reaches seven, making it the biggest retrieval of alive hostages since the war broke out.
In February, two men were saved when soldiers entered a tightly guarded flat in a highly populated town; in the aftermath of the attack in October, a woman was saved. The Israeli government reports that 16 captive bodies have been recovered from Gaza by Israeli troops.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised Saturday’s rescue as “a heroic operation” and vowed that the army will not rest until all captives are returned.
There is mounting pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease the bloodshed in Gaza. Many Israelis are asking him to accept the plan that US President Joe Biden offered last month, but his far-right backers have threatened to topple his administration if he does.
Argamani had a phone conversation with Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The government has published an audio clip in which Netanyahu asks Argamani how she is doing and states that he is still determined to free the captives. She exclaims her excitement, telling him it’s been a long time since she heard Hebrew.
Her pal Yonatan Levi was shocked to hear the news. I am astounded. I am at a loss for words. I am incredibly thrilled with this incredible reality. He was “so happy and joyful now,” Levi exclaimed.
At the same time as the hostages were rescued, Israel is stepping up its operations across central Gaza.
Reporters from the Associated Press were on hand at Al-Aqsa Hospital to count the bodies of the scores of Palestinians slain on Saturday. Further casualties were brought to the hospital later on from Nuseirat and the eastern Deir al-Balah regions, as distant clouds of smoke appeared.
Three mothers and nine children were among the more than thirty-three casualties in Thursday’s Israeli bombing on a Nuseirat school facility that was under the supervision of the United Nations.
On Friday, Israel announced the identities of seventeen militants it claimed were killed in the strike. The country claimed that thirty militants were inside the school during the incident. But only nine of those identities were found in the hospital’s death records. Medical records indicate that one of the accused terrorists was a boy of eight years of age.