Four Israeli hostages are released after raids in Gaza
The Israeli army has announced that it has rescued four Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas, from a music festival, during the group’s attack on October 7 of last year.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Among those rescued are: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrei Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv, the Israeli army said.
All four people are of young age.
They were said to have been rescued by a “complex” operation, carried out between the Israeli Security Agency and the Israel Police, from two different locations in the center of Gaza.
They are said to be in good health and have been taken to a hospital in Israel for further health checks.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has said that dozens of people, including children, have been killed and injured during the operation.
Staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital are said to be struggling to treat the wounded.
“Dozens of injured people are lying on the ground and medical teams are trying to save them with simple medical things,” the ministry said on Facebook.
Such a hostage rescue has occurred relatively rarely in the now eight-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The conflict between the two sides started on October 7, 2023, after Hamas militants attacked several Israeli settlements, killing around 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
Some of the hostages were released as part of a one-week ceasefire in November last year, while some are believed to have died.
Israel then launched an offensive in Gaza with the aim of destroying the group.
As a result of the Israeli offensive, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities.
