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Israel’s military freed four hostages held by Hamas in Gaza on Saturday after an operation in Nuseirat in the centre of the enclave.
The rescue of one woman and three men — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv — brings the number of hostages brought back alive by Israel’s military to seven and is the largest rescue operation since the start of the war against Hamas.
The four were kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel during Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took about 250 hostage.
Roughly half of the hostages were released during a truce last year in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, hailed the rescue and said Israel would “keep fighting” until the 120 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza — 43 of whom are thought to have died — were brought home.
The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, which represents relatives of the captives, welcomed the rescue as a “miraculous triumph”, and urged the government to “remember its commitment” to bring back all the hostages — “the living for rehabilitation, the murdered for burial”.
Health officials in Gaza said that the fighting in Nuseirat had caused “many” fatalities and injuries. A spokesman for Al Aqsa hospital in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, said that so far 55 bodies and dozens of injured people had been brought to the hospital, and that “many” more were expected.
In the wake of the rescue operation, Benny Gantz, the former general and opposition politician who joined Netanayhu’s coalition in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, cancelled an address scheduled for this evening. He had been widely expected to announce his departure from the government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a recording of himself speaking to Argamani after her rescue.
The spokesman for Israel’s military, Daniel Hagari, said the hostages had been rescued from two locations in Nuseirat by special forces in an operation at around 11am local time. All four were “alive and well” and would undergo medical checks in Israel.
The rescue comes as Israel is under mounting international pressure over the soaring civilian toll of its offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 36,500 people, according to Palestinian officials, as well as stoking a humanitarian catastrophe.
Last month, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over the war, while the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “immediately halt” its offensive in Rafah and allow more aid into Gaza.
On Friday it emerged that the UN had added the Israeli military to a list of countries and organisations that fail to protect children in conflict.
The news sparked a furious response in Israel, with its ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan — who published a recording of himself receiving the news — describing the decision as “shameful”.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the decision, saying “accountability is overdue”.
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