The American army said it had delivered, from the temporary artificial port repaired after a storm off the coast of Gaza, nearly 500 tons of “indispensable” humanitarian aid to the 2.4 million inhabitants facing the risk of famine.
On the other hand, she denied that this bridge — “its equipment, its personnel and its installations” — was used in the operations to free the hostages.
“An area south of this facility was used by the Israelis to secure the return of hostages to Israel. Any other statement is false,” Centcom said in a statement.
The Israeli army also refuted the participation of American soldiers on the ground in the release of hostages, after press reports indicating American support for the operations.
“There were no American soldiers, nor any American participation on the ground in this operation,” Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee told Mashhad TV.
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.
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 The unprecedented attack carried out on Israeli soil by Hamas on October 7, which sparked hostilities, according to the army.
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 emotional 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.
“This horror must stop”
The hostages, according to the army, are “in good health” and have been transferred to a medical center near Tel Aviv. Israeli police announced the death of one of their officers in the operations.
For its part, Hamas announced on Saturday a toll of at least 210 dead and more than 400 injured in Israeli attacks on the Nousseirat camp. The Hamas statement did not mention the release of hostages.
Saying she was “relieved” at the release of the hostages, the UN special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese deplored on X that it was “at the cost of at least 200 Palestinians, including children, killed and more than 400 wounded”.
“This horror must stop,” insisted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on X .
The leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, affirmed in a press release from Doha that the “resistance” would “continue”.
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the release of the four Israeli hostages, his American counterpart Joe Biden assuring Saturday in Paris that the United States would continue to mobilize until “all” were released.
“Miraculous”
A young Palestinian injured in air raids is taken to a hospital. (Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press)
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 shooting from drones and helicopters against the camp.
Doctor Khalil al-Dakran, a spokesperson for Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, near Nousseirat, announced the death of 15 people in “intense Israeli strikes” which, according to him, caused dozens of 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 on 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
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” on 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 urged his rival not to leave his government, stressing that the time was for “unity and not division”.
