The Israeli army announced that its forces had freed four hostages on Saturday from a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip where the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas reported 210 people killed.
On Saturday morning, during “a difficult special daytime operation in Nusseirat, four Israeli hostages were freed,” the Israeli army wrote earlier in a statement in the ninth month of the war against Hamas.
They are Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, all four “kidnapped” from the site of the Nova electronic music festival, during the unprecedented attack carried out on Israeli soil by Hamas on October 7, which triggered the hostilities, according to the army.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the release of the hostages was proof that Israel was not giving in “in the face of terrorism.”
A video posted on social media shows the emotional reunion between Noa Argamani and her father, as well as Israelis at the beach shouting with joy as they heard a lifeguard announce the release of the hostages.
The hostages, according to the army, are “in good health”. They were transferred to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, “to carry out further medical examinations.”
Israeli police announced the death of one of their officers as a result of his injuries during the operation to free the hostages.
For its part, Hamas announced on Saturday a toll of at least 210 dead and more than 400 injured in Israeli attacks on the Nousseirat camp. The Hamas press release does not mention the release of hostages.
The leader of the movement, Ismaïl Haniyeh, affirmed in a press release from Doha that the “resistance” would “continue”.
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the release of the four Israeli hostages, with his American counterpart Joe Biden assuring Saturday in Paris that the United States would continue to mobilize until “all” were released.
“Noa, Almog, Andrey and Shlomi, we are very happy to welcome you home,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on X.
The Hostage Families Forum hailed a “miraculous triumph,” urging the government and the international community to secure the release of the remaining captives.
Before its announcement on the hostages, the Israeli army said on Saturday that it was targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in the Nusseirat sector, while witnesses reported shooting from drones and helicopters against the camp.
A spokesperson for Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, near Nousseirat, Doctor Khalil al-Dakran, announced the death of 15 people in “intense Israeli strikes” in the central Gaza Strip , which, according to him, left dozens of others injured.
Intense fighting between the army and Palestinian fighters is taking place in the Al-Bureij and neighboring al-Maghazi camps, according to witnesses.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it struck “dozens of terrorist cells and infrastructure, including a tunnel located in a civilian structure” during operations in Bureij and Deir al-Balah.
In the north, five people were killed and seven wounded in an overnight airstrike on a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, a doctor at the Baptist Hospital and the Gaza Civil Defense said.
“We heard the sound of a huge explosion […] We went there and discovered human remains of children, women and elderly people,” Mohammad Abou Nahl, a resident, told AFP from Gaza.
In the south, artillery bombardments hit several areas of the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, according to local sources.
The attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Palestinian territory resulted in the death of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
During this attack, 251 people were taken as hostages. After a short truce in November which allowed the release of around a hundred of them, 116 hostages are still being held in Gaza, 41 of whom are dead, according to the Israeli army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
His army launched a deadly offensive in the small coastal territory. At least 36,801 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
The conflict has devastated much of the Gaza Strip and uprooted most of its 2.4 million residents who face the risk of famine. International aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, only reaches the territory in trickles.
While diplomatic efforts to secure a truce stall, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected next week in Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan, to “promote a ceasefire proposal” presented recently by President Joe Biden, according to Washington.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, Qatar and Egypt recently threatened Hamas officials with arrest and expulsion from Doha where they are based if they did not agree to a truce with Israel .
In Israel, Benny Gantz, the former army chief who became Benyamin Netanyahu’s political rival, who was to announce his resignation on Saturday evening, canceled his intervention, according to his spokesperson, shortly after the announcement of the release of the hostages .
He demanded the adoption of an “action plan” on the post-war in the Gaza Strip, failing which he would be “forced to resign from the government”, which he had joined after October 7.
