The Israeli military said on Saturday that four hostages were rescued during an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza’s Nuseirat, in the largest hostage rescue since the Gaza war began on October 7.
The hostages, three males and one female, were identified as 25-year-old Noa Argamani, 21-year-old Almog Meir Jan, 27-year-old Andrey Kozlov and 40-year-old Shlomi Ziv.
They were kidnapped by the Palestinian militant group Hamas from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, the IDF said. Israel lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, alongside other countries including the US and Germany.
The Hamas attacks killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s retaliatory military operations in Gaza have killed at least 36,801 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-led Health Ministry on Saturday.
What the IDF said about the rescue operation
The four rescued former hostages are in “good medical condition” and were taken to the “Sheba” Tel-Hashomer Medical Center for further medical evaluation, according to the military. The IDF said it would continue to make every effort to bring the remaining hostages home.
The IDF, together with the Israel Air Force and the Yamam police counter-terrorism unit, carried out what it described as the “complex daytime operation” on Saturday morning. Hostages were freed from two separate locations “in the heart of Nuseirat.”
Earlier on Saturday, the military said in a separate statement that forces were “targeting terrorist infrastructure in the area of Nuseirat.”
In a televised news conference, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said one Israeli soldier had been badly injured. Israeli forces returned fire, including with airstrikes, he said.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck a UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 35 people, according to a Gaza hospital.
Around 250 hostages were abducted by Hamas and other militants during the October 7 attacks on southern Israel. A total of seven have been rescued while about 100 were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israel as part of a temporary truce in November. Some 80 hostages are believed to still be alive in Hamas captivity.
dh/rmt (AFP, AP, Reuters)
