Four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 during the attacks at the Nova music festival were rescued by security forces Saturday morning.
The rescued hostages are Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They have all been taken to Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Center near Tel Aviv, and are reported to be in good condition.
Once reunited with her father and dying mother, Argamani talked with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone. Video footage from the attack in October, showed Argamani reaching out for her boyfriend as she was being taken away on the back of a motorcycle by two Hamas terrorists.
She appeared in a series of propaganda videos released by Hamas in January. The first video clip shows Argamani beside two male hostages, Yossi Sharabi and Itai Svirsky. The video ended with a caption saying, “Tomorrow, we will inform you of their fate.” A final video showed the bodies of Sharabiand Svirsky who Argamani said were killed in an air strike.
The rescue mission came the morning that the Israel Defense Forces were engaged in heavy gunfire with Hamas terrorists in Nuseirat and other areas of central Gaza. Shin Bet agents and officers of police’s elite Yaman counterterrorism unit raided two Hamas buildings. Argamani was rescued from one and Meir Jan, Kozlov, and Ziv from the other. During the operation, a Yaman officer was critically wounded and later died at an Israeli hospital. His name was Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora. In addition, hundreds of IDF participated in the operation.
Before the operation, Nuseirat was one of the few Gaza areas where troops had yet to maneuver on the ground.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the operation took weeks to plan and relied on intelligence that was difficult to obtain.
“During the operation, we struck … threats to our forces in the area. These threats were struck from the land, air, and sea … for us to extract our forces [and the hostages],” Hagari said in a press conference.
An American cell in Israel supported the efforts to rescue four Israeli hostages, working with Israeli forces on the operation, a U.S. official told CNN.
At least 94 Palestinians were killed as a result of the IDF strikes from the rescue mission.
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This is the third successful operation by the IDF. On February 23, Fernando Marman and Louis Har were rescued from southern Rafah, and IDF Corporal Ori Megidish was rescued last October from the northern Gaza Strip.
Of the 250 hostages taken, 120 still remain, with 30 presumed dead. Several hostages have been killed while being held captive, with their bodies having been returned to Israel, according to Israeli officials. On Monday, the IDF confirmed the death of four additional hostages.
