JERUSALEM: The Israeli military claimed its troops had rescued on Saturday four Israeli hostages alive from the besieged Gaza Strip after a “daytime operation”, AFP reported.
The army named the rescued hostages as Almog Meir Jan, 22, Noa Argamani, 26, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41.
All four were held hostage by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas from the Nova music festival on October 7, the military said in a statement, adding the four had been shifted to hospital and were in “good medical condition”.
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the operation took place in two separate buildings “in the heart of a civilian neighbourhood”.
An Israeli soldier was “critically injured” in the operation, which took place around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), the spokesman added.
The rare rescue comes eight months into the ongoing Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
Since October 7 last year, Israel has launched relentless bombardments and ground offensive on Gaza killing more than 36,801 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
A Gaza hospital said Israeli strikes in central areas of the territory, including in Nuseirat camp, killed at least 15 Palestinian people on Saturday.
“Intense Israeli air strikes in central governorate left at least 15 martyrs and tens injured who have been brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital,” the spokesman for the facility, doctor Khalil al-Dakran, told AFP.
Dakran said the casualties had come from in and around Nuseirat camp as well as Deir al-Balah, where the hospital is located.
Hamas said in a separate statement: “There are dozens of bodies of martyrs and wounded lying on the ground, in the streets, and in safe rooms.”
The Palestinian group added that Israeli forces were engaged in a “brutal and savage aggression on Nuseirat camp”.
In recent weeks, the Israeli military has carried out intense air and ground assaults in and around Nuseirat.
On Thursday, the military struck a school-turned-shelter run by the UN agency for supporting Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, which the Al-Aqsa hospital said had killed 37 Palestinian people.
The Israeli military acknowledged it conducted the strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp that targeted the UN school.
In February, another rescue mission freed two hostages, but the health ministry in Gaza said heavy air strikes that accompanied that mission killed around 100 people in Rafah, southern Gaza.
