by Sofia Tranchina
In a complicated operation approved Thursday evening and executed Saturday, joint forces of the IDF, Shin Bet and Yamam recovered and rescued four hostages: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Zivkidnapped during the Nova Festival massacre and held in captivity in Gaza for 246 days.
Found in buildings in two different locations of al-Nuseirat, Gaza, the hostages were taken by helicopter to Israel, where they were hospitalized for checks on their health conditions. Ground troops had never yet entered Nuseirat.
The rear admiral Daniel Hagarispokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said that the operational planning, which had been ongoing for many weeks, was particularly complex and was made possible by quality intelligence.
«This was one of the most complicated special operations ever conducted»IDF officials said.
The hostages were rescued by special forces while they were under heavy fire: Hamas had deployed hundreds of armed terrorists in the area surrounding the two locations. An officer from the Yamam (Central Special Unit of the Israeli Border Police) was seriously injured and is currently hospitalized.
A vehicle carrying three hostages malfunctioned during the extraction, but special forces managed to transfer them to a military helicopter that took them to the Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv.
Noa Argamani26, an Israeli of Chinese origin who was kidnapped with her boyfriend Avinatan Or, had become the “face of the hostage crisis” after video of her being taken away on a motorbike while pleading with terrorists not to kill her made the rounds of the world.
Capitalizing on her notoriety, Hamas had her appear in January, along with the other two hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky, in a 37-second video in which, gaunt and under duress, the three asked the government to take them home, mentioning also “other hostages killed in the air strikes”. The video, part of the psychological warfare with which Hamas seeks to bring down Israeli society, ended with the words “tomorrow we will inform you of their fate.”
In May, after 237 days of captivity, Hamas also released a recording in which Noa’s voice could be heard making an “appeal to the people of Israel”:
«Save us. Go to the streets to demonstrate, close the streets of Tel Aviv and don’t go home until we return. Don’t let Netanyahu and the government kill us. Save us, time is running out, the people must decide. We don’t want to die here.”
Today, a video of the young girl hugging her father again, smiling, is going around the world: it is the symbol of the successful rescue mission.
Taken to Tel Hashomer hospital, Noa then received a phone call from President Isaac Herzog and a phone call from Prime Minister Netanyahu: «I am very moved, I hadn’t heard Hebrew in so long…».
Comrade Avinatan Or is believed to still be a hostage.
Almog Meir Jan, 21 years old, had called his mother Orit at 7.45 in the morning on Black Saturday: “mum, they’re shooting, they’re shooting.” She didn’t quite understand what was going on, but she, she said, she would update her later.
According to reconstructions, he then tried to get away with a friend (who also disappeared) in a car, which was targeted by terrorists before they could get away.
The last news arrived at 12.30, when his uncle Aviram Meir recognized him in a video shot by the terrorists’ bodycams, together with four other tied and frightened boys.
Released from military service three months earlier, Almog had spent Friday night in Or Yehuda helping his 87-year-old grandfather, who had recently undergone back surgery.
Andrey Kozlov27, moved to Israel from Russia about a year and a half ago, with the internship program of Masa. She lived with friends in Rishon Lezion, and was very happy to live in Israel, said her girlfriend Jennifer Master.
Andrey was working as a security guard at the Nova Festival when, at 9am on Black Saturday, he wrote to his father that he had heard gunshots. He then wrote to his friends that he had nowhere to hide.
Also Shlomi Ziv41, was part of the security team at the Nova Festival, which he went to with his two friends Aviv Eliyahu and Jake Marlowe, both killed.
At 7.30am on Black Saturday he told his sister Adi Kikozashvili that “everything was fine”: the terrorists were shooting and there were sirens for incoming rockets, but he and the rest of the team were “fine”.
Without ammunition, Shlomi tried to drive away but was trapped in bottleneck traffic. Shortly afterwards he called his sister Revital: he was tired, he told her “I’ll call you back”.
The operation was officially approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Thursday eveningand it proved to be a great success for Israel, which in the past eight months of war managed to recover only three other hostages: the soldier Ori Megidish (at the end of October), and the hostages Fernando Simon Marman And Louis Har in Rafah last February.
After a lifeguard on the beach in Tel Aviv announced the success of the rescue over the loudspeaker, shouts of joy and applause overwhelmed the city and the nation.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official sought to dampen celebrations in Israel by declaring that “the recapture of four prisoners after nine months of fighting is a sign of failure, not an achievement,” the Times of Israel reports.
In a press release, the Family Forum he has declared:
«The heroic IDF operation that freed and brought home Noa Argamani is a miraculous triumph. Now, with the joy that is overwhelming Israel, the government must remember its commitment to bring back all 120 hostages still held by Hamas: the living for rehabilitation, the murdered for burial.
Let’s keep asking international community to exert the necessary pressure on Hamas to accept the proposed agreement and release the other 120 hostages held captive; every day there is one day too many.”
During the October 7 attack, Palestinian terrorists have kidnapped 251 hostages.
A week-long truce at the end of November saw the release of 105 civilians, following which 19 bodies were recovered and 7 hostages were rescued, leading to 116 the hostages still in captivity today in Gaza, of whom 41 were declared dead by the IDF.
Hamas also holds hostage two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014.
295 soldiers lost their lives in these eight months of war.
