The mission was so secret that not even all the soldiers knew what the goal was. On the morning of June 8, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the heads of the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet and the army crowded into a command room. Monitors showed live feeds from an approximately 800-meter-long stretch of road in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. At exactly 11 a.m., Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar gave the signal: “Go!”
What followed was one of the riskiest operations in Israel’s history. At 12:20 p.m., the parents of hostage Noa Argamani, 26, were informed that their daughter was free. Soon after, the relatives of Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Schlomi Ziv, 41, were notified. And then all of Israel: Four hostages who had been held captive by Hamas for months are back home.
The images went around the world. And with them the question: What about the remaining hostages? Are they still alive? Where is Hamas holding them captive? And: Can they also be freed?
To understand this, you have to look at what happened that Saturday morning – and in the weeks before. One person who led such operations is Avi Kalo. The 47-year-old was commander of the hostage rescue unit of the Israeli military intelligence service and a member of the negotiation team for 20 years.
“This was the most intensive intelligence-based hostage rescue operation ever conducted in Israel, and probably the most intensive ever – in such a short time frame of several weeks of planning,” says Kalo. Israel, with the support of the US and Britain, has been searching for clues as to where the hostages are being held. Using drones, satellites, information from forces on the ground, intercepted messages, interrogations of captured Hamas terrorists, clues from objects and documents found in the tunnels under Gaza.
From such fragments, a picture is continually being put together of where the remaining hostages are. The information is often patchy. Sometimes there is an indication that a particular hostage is still alive, sometimes an indication of which terrorist cell is holding the hostage captive. This does not yet reveal the location. But perhaps an idea of which part of the Gaza Strip the search should be intensified.
On May 12, according to the British newspaper “Jewish Chronicle” citing Israeli security forces, Israel received information that four hostages were being held in the area of the Nuseirat refugee camp. From then on, all intelligence departments focused on the location. A team of “Mista’arvim” was reportedly sent. This is the name of special forces who speak fluent Palestinian Arabic with a local dialect.
The Israelis allegedly posed as residents of Rafah, fleeing the Israeli offensive in the south of the Gaza Strip. They mingled with the locals and began to scout the area. This enabled the Mista’arvim to determine the hiding place where Hamas was holding the four hostages: Noa Argamani on the first floor of a residential building. The three male hostages in a second, nearby building on the third floor.
To be on the safe side, more teams were sent to Nuseirat. They included women dressed in hijabs and long black dresses. They arrived in old cars loaded with household items and mattresses. According to the Jewish Chronicle, they posed as two displaced families and rented a house on the same street where the hostages were. The special forces settled in and went shopping at the local market so as not to arouse suspicion. After a few days, they began to investigate the location of the apartments more closely.
The spies confirmed the locations of the four hostages. Then training for the mission began. Special forces built models that resembled the buildings where the hostages were hiding. For three days, fighters from the Yamam unit, which specializes in freeing hostages, practiced the rescue operation, which was complicated by an additional factor: to achieve the greatest possible surprise effect, they were supposed to storm the buildings in daylight. Normally, such dangerous operations are launched under cover of night.
While the commanders waited for the right moment, military excavators cleared the streets around Nuseirat so that the special forces’ vehicles could pass freely. When the signal came, the special forces stormed both buildings simultaneously. In the command room, the chiefs of staff followed the action via drones and live feeds from the soldiers’ helmet cameras.
The first operation went according to plan: the units managed to surprise the guards. Within six minutes, 26-year-old Noa was freed from the apartment unharmed and taken to a helicopter that flew her to the hospital in Tel Aviv.
The second operation, however, escalated. Soldiers used a ladder to get into the room where the three male hostages were being held. The other forces stormed the stairwell into the apartment where dozens of men were staying. The terrorists immediately opened fire.
Yamam commander Arnon Zamora was hit. The forces managed to get the three hostages and the seriously injured commander into a vehicle, but it was too badly damaged by Hamas shelling to escape. The group took refuge in a nearby building and requested air support. Explosions shook the densely packed streets in Nuseirat.
The special forces managed to get to the beach with the hostages. A second helicopter was waiting there. Upon arrival in Tel Aviv, Commander Zamora was declared dead. According to Hamas, more than 270 Palestinians were killed in the operation. Israel says it knows of about 100.
“Of course there could be more rescue operations like this, we hope so,” says hostage expert Kalo. But he also says: “They cannot replace the only solution we have to bring all the hostages home. And that is a hostage agreement.”
The USA is currently mediating between Israel and Hamas again. They have put forward a plan that Netanyahu has hesitantly agreed to. Hamas is resisting. It is demanding that Israel withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip as a precondition – a no-go for Netanyahu’s hard-line government. Israel wants to see hostages before agreeing to a ceasefire. But Hamas only wants to send corpses for now.
What gives little hope is that the terrorist organization claims that it does not know how many of the remaining 116 hostages are still alive. It is assumed that many died in captivity. There is no official information on how many hostages are alive.
An Israeli negotiator recently told the French news agency AFP that “there are certainly dozens alive.” The official, who asked not to be identified, added: “We cannot leave them there for long. They will die.”
According to Kalo’s assessment, Hamas leader Yahya al-Sinwar is delaying a deal. “Why? Because time is playing into his hands.” The conflict between Israel and Iran’s allies is escalating more and more, such as the one with Hezbollah in Lebanon. “That is Sinwar’s vision,” says Kalo: “Not just a local conflict between Hamas and Israel – he wants to ignite a war in the entire region. And he sees his vision becoming reality step by step. So why should he agree to an agreement now?”
The Wall Street Journal recently published a report based on dozens of messages from Sinwar. According to the report, the calculation behind his rejection of the deal is that more deaths among the Palestinian civilian population will increase international pressure on Israel to make concessions to Hamas. “We have the Israelis exactly where we want them,” Sinwar said in a message to Hamas representatives.
Meanwhile, in Israel, freed hostages have joined the protests for a deal. Andrey Kozlov sent a clear message to the Netanyahu government: “For the hostages who are still in Gaza, there is one decision, only one, and that is an agreement between Israel and Hamas.”
