who are the four Israeli hostages released from Hamas?

After 245 days in the hands of Hamas, they were finally reunited with their loved ones. The Israeli army announced this Saturday, June 8, that it had freed four hostages during a “special operation” in the center of the Gaza Strip.

They are Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, all four “abducted” on the website of the Nova electro music festival. The hostages were “helped” in two different places in Nousseirat and are in good health.

Noa Argamani, 26 years old

The image of his spectacular kidnapping had left its mark. On October 7, Noa, a 26-year-old student (25 at the time) was kidnapped and forced onto the back of a motorcycle while she was at the Nova techno festival. In the images, we can see the young woman terrified, screaming in the direction of her companion Avinatan Or, himself taken by force by Hamas terrorists, with his hands tied behind his back.

At the beginning of January, Noa makes a new appearance on the screens. This time she affirms, in front of the camera, and visibly under pressure, that two men with whom she was detained are dead. In a statement, the armed wing of Hamas specifies that they have “were killed in Zionist bombings on Gaza”.

Like three other hostages, Noa was released this Saturday, June 8, eight months after her kidnapping. In a video posted on X, we see the young woman, relieved and with a smile on her face, talking with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

In one photograph, Noa Argamani is embraced by her father, while they are in a Tel Aviv hospital where her mother is hospitalized with terminal brain cancer.

Almog Meir Jan, 22 years old

On October 7, Almog Meir Jan calls his mother Orit Meir: “Mom, rockets are falling everywhere. I don’t know what’s going on. I love you mom “, she told Israeli media. In a video published by Hamas, she immediately identifies her son. “He was lying on the ground. He was terrified, terrified”.

Originally from Or Yehuda, a small town east of Tel Aviv, Almog Meir, described as a polite and helpful young man, went to the festival the day before he was due to start a contract at a tech company. . After his release, he immediately reunited with his mother, as we can see in this image where they are hugging.

Andrey Kozlov, 27 years old

Andrey Kozlov is a 27-year-old Russian. Unlike Noa and Almog, he went to the festival as a security guard.

Originally from St. Petersburg, he arrived in Israel a year and a half ago as part of his Aliyah, a term designating the act of immigration to the Land of Israel. Her family remained in Russia.

Shlomi Ziv, 41 years old

Shlomi, 41, was also a security guard at the festival. We do not know the conditions of his kidnapping, but this interior decorator took this job to help a cousin of his wife, Miren. With her, he lives in a rural community (Moshav) of Elkosh, in the north of Israel.

Of the 252 people taken as hostages on October 7, 120 are still being held in Gaza now that these four new hostages have been released. The death of 37 people is known with certainty.