The first details emerge of the captivity of the four hostages rescued yesterday in a joint daytime special operation by the IDF, the ISA and the Israeli Police (Yamam), in Nuseirat, in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv told medical teams they were subjected to what they described as “brainwashing” and emotional abuse, with terrorists forcing them to read the Koran and study the Islamic norms. Channel 13 also reported that Noa Argamani told her family that she was held captive along with Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky, who were killed during their captivity. The IDF later confirmed that Sharabi died during an airstrike, while Svirsky was assassinated days later. Argamani revealed that she was moved between different apartments and was not held in the tunnels. She was occasionally allowed to go out disguised as an Arab woman and she rarely had the opportunity to take a shower.
The girl, who unwillingly became the symbol of October 7, was held in an apartment on the first floor of a building, a few hundred meters from where the other three hostages were held. She told her family she heard loud bangs that morning. “Out of nowhere, they told her that she was the IDF. She was in shock,” her relative, Assaf Shaheebi, said at Sheba Medical Center. During the phone call with President Isaac Herzog and the meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Noa Argamani she said: “I am very excited; I haven’t spoken Hebrew in so long.”
Almog Meir Jan revealed to a relative that a few weeks ago, when he was celebrating his birthday in captivity, Hamas terrorists filmed him and said they would send the video to Israel. “He also asked us: ‘Have you seen the video?’” the relative told Ynet. The video, however, was never released by Hamas and therefore never circulated in Israel. During the dramatic rescue operation, Almog was asleep and does not remember all the details. The boy, who returned home safely, unfortunately was unable to hug his father again, who died a few hours before knowing that his son would be returning home. “The night before Almog returned, my brother’s heart stopped. He couldn’t see his son’s return,” Dina Jan, Almog’s aunt, tells public broadcaster Kan.
Andrey Kozlov also shared some of his prison experiences during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Netanyahu, Kozlov, an immigrant from Russia, kept a diary. Afterwards, Kozlov spoke on the phone with President Isaac Herzog, revealing that he had indeed learned Hebrew during his captivity. “I started learning Hebrew exactly a year ago, so I practiced a lot with the other hostages,” Kozlov said.
The operation was preceded by weeks of meticulous planning, exercises and advanced intelligence monitoring. The hostages were held in civilian areas, in three or four-story buildings. The forces stormed two separate buildings, where the hostages were held: Argamani was held on the first floor of one building, while Kozlov, Ziv and Meir Jan were held on the third floor of another, hundreds of meters away. During the operation, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, who “led the forces” according to the IDF, was killed in the apartment where the three men were being held. The operation would be renamed Operation Arnon in memory of him.
