The Israeli army announced that it had released four hostages on Saturday from a refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip where the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, for its part, reported 210 people killed.
On Saturday morning, during “a difficult special daytime operation in Nusseirat, four Israeli hostages were freed,” the Israeli army wrote earlier in a statement in the ninth month of war against Hamas.
According to the Israeli army, they are Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41; all four “abducted” from the site of the Nova electro music festival, during the unprecedented attack carried out on Israeli soil by Hamas, which sparked hostilities on October 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the release of the hostages was proof that Israel was not giving in “in the face of terrorism.”
A video posted on social media shows the moving reunion between Noa Argamani and her father, as well as Israelis at the beach shouting with joy as they heard a lifeguard announce the release of the hostages.
The hostages, according to the army, are “in good health” and have been transferred to a medical center near Tel Aviv, “to carry out additional medical examinations”.
Israeli police announced the death of one of their officers as a result of his injuries during the operation to free the hostages.
AFP
For its part, Hamas announced on Saturday a toll of at least 210 dead and more than 400 injured during Israeli attacks in the Nousseirat camp. The Hamas statement did not mention the release of hostages.
The leader of the movement, Ismaïl Haniyeh, for his part, affirmed in a press release from Doha that the “resistance” would “continue”.
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the release of the four Israeli hostages, while his American counterpart Joe Biden declared on Saturday in Paris that the United States would continue to mobilize until “all” were released.
“Miraculous”
“Noa, Almog, Andrey and Shlomi, we are very happy to welcome you home,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in X.
The Hostage Families Forum hailed a “miraculous triumph,” urging the government and the international community to secure the release of the remaining captives.
Before the announcement on the hostages, the Israeli army said on Saturday that it was targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Nousseirat, while witnesses reported shots from drones and helicopters against the camp.
A spokesperson for the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al Balah, near Nousseirat, Doctor Khalil Al-Dakran, announced the death of 15 people in “intense Israeli strikes” which, according to him, killed dozens others injured.
Intense clashes between the army and Palestinian fighters are taking place in the Al-Bureij and neighboring Al-Maghazi camps, according to witnesses.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it had struck “dozens of terrorist cells and infrastructure, including a tunnel located in a civilian structure” during operations in Bureij and Deir Al Balah.
Strikes in Rafah
In the south, artillery bombardments hit several areas of the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, according to local sources.
The attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Palestinian territory resulted in the death of 1,194 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
During this attack, 251 people were taken as hostages. After a short truce in November which allowed the release of around a hundred of them, 116 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 41 are dead, according to the Israeli army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
His army launched a deadly offensive in the small coastal territory. At least 36,801 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
Blinken expected in the region
The conflict has devastated a large part of the Gaza Strip and uprooted most of its 2.4 million inhabitants who face the risk of famine. International aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, only reaches the territory in dribs and drabs.
While diplomatic efforts to achieve a truce stall, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected next week in Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan, to “promote a ceasefire proposal” presented recently by President Joe Biden, according to Washington.
According to Wall Street Journalciting sources familiar with the matter, Qatar and Egypt recently threatened Hamas officials with arrest and expulsion from Doha where they are based if they did not agree to a truce with Israel.
In Israel, Benny Gantz, the former army chief who became Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rival, who was to announce his resignation from the war cabinet on Saturday evening, canceled his intervention shortly after the announcement of the release of the hostages.
He demanded the adoption of an “action plan” for the post-war period in the Gaza Strip, failing which he would be “forced to resign from the government” which he had joined after October 7.
Mr. Netanyahu, in X, urged his rival not to leave his government, stressing that the time was “for unity and not for division”.
