Israeli security forces rescued four hostages, including Noa Argamani, the face of those kidnapped on October 7, during a daytime operation in central Gaza on Saturday, in an operation that authorities in the enclave said killed dozens of Palestinians.
The rescued hostages are Argamani, 25; Almog Meir January 21; Andrei Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40, according to a statement issued by the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Securities Authority and the Israel Police.
They were among those kidnapped by Hamas during the Nova music festival on October 7.
They were transferred to Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Center near Tel Aviv, where authorities say they are in “good medical condition.”
The United States provided intelligence in support of the operation, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter. O New York Times first reported the US role.
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The rescues took place amid an attack on the city of Nuseirat, in central Gaza, where a refugee camp and the community where the four hostages were hiding are located, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 210 people were killed and another 400 injured in the assault and rescue operation. It is unclear how many were civilians. Observers and organizations based outside the war zone generally condemned the bloodshed.
The news of the release of the four hostages was received with jubilation in Israel. On a beach in Tel Aviv, crowds cheered as lifeguards announced the news over a loudspeaker, reading their names one by one.
A video circulated on social media showed Argamani reuniting with his father. She also spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone conversation following her rescue. “I’m really excited,” she said. “I haven’t spoken Hebrew in a long time.”
Yan Gorjaltsan, a friend of Argamani from her hometown of Be’er Sheva, told NBC News that he and a group of friends were on their way to Tel Aviv to see her. “These are the happiest days of our lives,” he said. “You can’t believe how we’re feeling.”
United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said in a statement that the rescues “should not have come at the expense of at least 200 Palestinians, including children, dead and more than 400 injured.”
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the broader attack by Israeli forces as a “horrible massacre” at a refugee camp.
Video from an NBC News team on the scene captured the aftermath in Nuseirat, which included a wave of injuries at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, including the bodies of surviving children wrapped in pink-soaked gauze.
Following the rescues, the bloodied and burned bodies of Palestinian adults and children were scattered across the city’s streets. The video showed bodies piled up near the door of a house.
Cars smoked, the charred bodies of their passengers remained to mark the moment they were attacked, while people roamed the streets of Nuseirat looking for missing loved ones and children carried their dead classmates with them.
Hospitals, already low on supplies, were overwhelmed. In a statement, Doctors Without Borders called the situation at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital “a nightmare.”
The organization said its doctors were at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and Nasser Hospital “to treat an overwhelming number of seriously injured patients, many of whom are women and children.”
Chris Hook, a Doctors Without Borders employee in Nasser, said in the statement that the facility where he is based saw 50 victims of the attack within an hour.
The Medical Corps organization said in a statement that the attack had left it “overwhelmed” as it had received 220 cases, 40 described as critical, “with patients arriving every minute”, at its field hospital in central Gaza.
In a briefing, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said they are aware of “around less than 100” Palestinian victims but do not know “how many of them are terrorists,” Reuters reported.
The IDF said its forces came under fire during the operation and one officer was injured and later died.
The rescue came at a time when pressure was mounting for Netanyahu to reach an agreement to release the hostages, with thousands of people protesting regularly in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The Forum on Hostages and Missing Families, which advocates for the hostages’ release, called the rescue a “miraculous” triumph, adding that the government should “bring back all 120 hostages still held by Hamas” and called on Hamas to accept the cessation. – fire deal proposed by President Joe Biden that would include the release of remaining hostages in Gaza.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called the rescue “a great light in a terrible darkness” and welcomed the return of the hostages.
Argamani, a data science engineering student, was captured on video screaming as she was carried on the back of a motorcycle, in a roughly 10-second clip that became a symbol of the Israeli hostage crisis.
To her loved ones, efforts to free her felt like a race against time, as her mother, Liora, has terminal brain cancer. Argamani turned 26 during his captivity. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, is believed to remain in Gaza.
Almog Meir Jan was discharged from military service months before the attack, according to the Times of Israel. He tried to flee the festival with a friend, but only made it a short distance before being captured.
Shlomi Ziv worked as a security guard in Nova and called his sisters as he tried to escape.
Andrey Kozlov recently moved to Israel from Russia and also worked as a security guard at the festival.
Saturday’s operation is the second time the IDF has rescued live hostages from Gaza since October 7. In February, two hostages were rescued from the southern city of Rafah during a night mission.
In May, the bodies of three hostages were recovered from the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.
Hamas captured around 240 hostages during the October 7 attacks, which ended with around 1,200 dead inside Israel. About half of the hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November and Israel says more than 120 remain, with about a quarter of those believed dead.
Israel declared war following the October 7 incursion by Hamas militants, which ended with 240 people kidnapped and around 1,200 killed inside the country.
Israel took the war to Hamas strongholds in Gaza and swept civilians into the maelstrom, displacing 2 million people, the majority of the territory’s population, and contributing to the deaths of 36,731 people in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health .
Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other countries to increase the precision of its warfare, often conducted with American equipment, and reduce civilian casualties.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
