The Shin Bet and theIdfthe intelligence and army of the State of Israel, have recovered four live hostages with an operation in the heart of Nuseirat, in the center of the Gaza Strip. The four had been kidnapped by Hamas at the Supernova music festival, the event on the border of the enclave scene of the bloodiest massacre by Islamic terrorists, who killed 364 participants during the October 7 offensive. “The hostages were rescued by Shin Bet and army fighters. Their medical conditions are normal and they have been transferred to Sheba-Tel Hashomer Medical Center for further medical tests. The security forces continue to act with all efforts to rescue the abductees,” read a joint statement. The operation, prepared for weeks, was finally approved on Thursday evening and involved hundreds of members of the army and services, as well as the special anti-terrorism unit of the national police: according to the CNNone also collaborated US cell. According to the Ministry of Health of the Strip, an expression of Hamas, the air raids conducted by Israel to carry out the blitz have killed 94 people (including children) and injured more than a hundred. For his part, the Tel Aviv police announced the death of the commander of the Anti-Terrorism unit, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora.
Among the freed prisoners is the 25-year-old Noa Argamani, who had appeared in one of the symbolic videos of October 7, torn away from her boyfriend and taken away on a motorbike by Islamic militiamen while she begged not to kill her. She more recently appeared in another Hamas propaganda video. Her mother Liora, seriously ill with cancer, had launched a desperate appeal to be able to hug her again. After the liberation you met the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president Isaac Herzog: “I’m very excited, I haven’t spoken Hebrew in so long,” she told him, according to the site’s account Ynet. “We have not given up on you even for a moment,” Netanyahu replied. Adding: “I don’t know if you believed it, but we believed it and I’m happy it happened.” The other hostages rescued include the 21-year-old Almog Meir Janthe 27 year old Andrey Kozlov and the forty year old Shlomi Ziv.
“Once again you have demonstrated that Israel does not surrender to terrorism and acts with an audacity that knows no bounds to bring our hostages home,” Netanyahu said, addressing Israeli forces. “We are committed to doing so in the future as well. We will not give up until we have completed the mission and brought home all our hostages, both alive and dead,” he added. After the news the war cabinet minister and centrist leader Benny Gantz canceled this evening’s press conference on the expiration of the ultimatum given by Netanyahu on the change of policy in the war on Gaza, under penalty of leaving the government.
“Noa, Almog, Andrey and Shlomi: we are very happy to have you back home,” said the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who spoke of a “heroic operation”: “IDF, Shin Bet and special forces operated with extraordinary courage under heavy fire and were successful in completing their mission,” he added. “The heroic operation of the IDF is a miraculous triumph. Now, with joy overwhelming Israel, the government must remember its commitment to bring it back all 120 hostages still detained by Hamas: the living for rehabilitation, the killed for burial,” declares the Family forum of the hostages. “We continue to call on the international community to exert the necessary pressure on Hamas to accept the proposed agreement and release the other 120 hostages held captive. Every day is one day too many.”
