The Israeli army has freed four hostages alive in a broad daylight operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, in which hundreds of soldiers participated. It is the largest rescue in eight months of war, just when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under greater pressure to end the war to recover the 120 (two thirds of them alive) kidnapped in the attack on 7 of October left in the Strip. The operation, in two different houses, has been accompanied by intense aerial bombardments by land, sea and air that have caused 210 deaths and 400 injuries, according to Hamas. The hospital where the bodies had been arriving since Saturday morning was saturated.
Those rescued are Noa Argamani, 25 years old; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They were all captured at the Nova open-air festival, where hundreds of young people were dancing at dawn a few kilometers from Gaza when they began to see the first rockets in the sky.
Thousands of people have been gathering since early afternoon in what is known as Hostages and Missing Persons Square in Tel Aviv. The rescue has turned the weekly demonstration of the main forum that presses for the release of the hostages into a mixture of celebration and a call to Netanyahu so that he does not forget the rest of the hostages or trust everything to military means. “The joy will only be full when all the hostages return home,” Lior Ashkenazi, a popular actor who has been involved in the case for months, declared from the stand. Between chants of “Everyone! Now!”, Ashkenazi has urged Netanyahu to ignore the internal “political pressures” (in reference to his far-right partners) and move forward without delay the agreement that he himself agreed to put on the table and summarized last week by the President of the United States. United, Joe Biden.
Netanyahu has since buried the illusion that the proposal generated, by maintaining the bombing with intensity, pointing out “differences” between what Biden presented and the true draft on the table, and refusing to conclude the invasion until “eliminating military and government capabilities.” of Hamas.” Precisely, this Saturday, the president of the United States celebrated the rescue of the four hostages, but he also described as “essential” achieving a ceasefire whose price Hamas has not changed: the end of the war, without ifs and buts, in exchange of all the hostages. Just two days ago, the leaders of 17 countries, including the United States, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, urged both Israel and Hamas to close the agreement now.
“Let’s not forget that there are still 120 hostages”
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Israeli television has broadcast a video of Noa Argamani – one of the hostages who has become a symbol, especially because of her family history (her mother suffers from cancer) and the images in which she asks for help during her capture – speaking on the phone with the president, Isaac Herzog, shortly after his rescue. “I’m so glad to be here,” she tells him. In those videos of her capture, she was seen riding on the back of a motorcycle while she screamed “Don’t kill me!” Her father, Yaakov Argamani, has called for “every possible effort” to bring the rest back. “Let’s not forget that there are still 120 hostages,” he said at a press conference at the hospital.
Those released have been transported by military helicopters to a hospital near Tel Aviv, where they have been able to hug their families and undergo a medical examination. “Everyone is healthy and their state of health is good,” confirmed the military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, in an extraordinary appearance before the press.
A member of Yamam, an elite unit of the Israeli border police, was killed in the operation, which took place under fire from the militants. The army and intelligence services had been preparing it for weeks and received the green light on Thursday to carry it out. The images released by Gazans in the area show bombings of enormous intensity. The Al Jazeera television network claims that the soldiers used an ambulance to arrive incognito at the houses.
“Releasing four detainees is not an achievement. The achievement is that the resistance still maintains 120″, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida, reacted in a statement, emphasizing that, “according to all calculations of military power”, the war “should have ended in a month with an overwhelming victory for the Israelis.”
The aforementioned spokesperson wanted to issue a threat regarding possible similar operations. He has claimed, without providing evidence, that Israeli troops killed other hostages during the operation and announced that the “massacre” of Palestinians that Israel committed to rescue four hostages “will affect first of all” the rest of the captives, because “it will impact negatively on their conditions and lives.” The leader of the Islamist movement, Ismail Haniye, has made clear that the news will not force Hamas to accept an agreement that does not provide security for the Palestinians.

In eight months of war, Israel has barely managed to free seven Israelis in military operations. The last, in February in Rafah, Fernando Simón Marman and Norberto Luis Har, both with dual Argentine-Israeli nationality. The vast majority (a hundred of the more than 250 taken on October 7) returned in a negotiated manner in the last week of November, in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and the entry of more aid. humanitarian.
An oxygen tank for Netanyahu
The operation gives a boost to Netanyahu in the midst of indirect negotiations for a new exchange with Hamas. The prime minister has been defending that exerting “military pressure” helps bring back the hostages, by softening the negotiating position of the Islamists. The facts do not confirm it, but the rescue gives points to his narrative just after three weeks of ruining him. Every few days, like a trickle, there were confirmations that some hostages were no longer alive (some apparently due to the massive Israeli bombings themselves) or announcements of soldiers dying in combat in Gaza.
Netanyahu is aware that, although exceptional, successful operations like this Saturday’s strike a particularly sensitive chord in Israel, which experiences the captivity of the hostages as if they were its own loved ones. Admiration for the military transcends ideological divisions and military service is mandatory. The presenter of national television channel 12 himself cried with emotion as he gave way to the images of Yaakov Argamani celebrating the rescue of his daughter with his fists raised and the phrase: “What an army we have!”
The prime minister also knows, however, that a social majority, according to polls, supports an agreement to free all those kidnapped, even if it means putting an end to the war. For this reason, he has promised this Saturday to “bring back all the hostages,” whether with military rescues or “other possibilities.”
The most popular minister cancels his speech
In addition to uniting the Government and opposition in joy, the rescue has had a first political derivative. Benny Gantz – one of the three most important men in the war government, along with Netanyahu and the head of Defense, Yoav Gallant – has canceled the speech in which he was expected to announce his departure from the coalition.
Gantz is not the leader of the opposition (but the previous prime minister, Yair Lapid), but he is the most popular. He has been gaining ground thanks to his image as a former chief of the General Staff, serious, professional and more concerned about his country than about political calculations. He was in the opposition before the October 7 attack, but decided to join the war government to prioritize unity in the face of the months of relevant decisions that loomed. He has the right to vote in the small cabinet that makes the main decisions on the issue.
After months of pressure from people and outsiders to stop acting as Netanyahu’s crutch, Gantz issued an ultimatum last month to the prime minister: if by this Saturday, June 8, he did not announce a plan for post-war Gaza, he would return to the opposition. As it did not happen, he was expected to announce his departure from the coalition in the speech he was to give later in the day.
Netanyahu called on Gantz on Saturday night, through the social network X, not to leave the coalition: “This is the time for unity and not division. “We must remain united among ourselves in the face of the great tasks that lie ahead.”
The postponed step would not have left Netanyahu in the minority, because he has maintained the support of his far-right and ultranationalist partners since the 2022 elections, but it would have brought closer an electoral advance that the majority of Israelis want. Gantz has been losing popularity in recent weeks, in part because fewer and fewer followers understand that he should continue in the Executive, but his party (National Unity) would continue to win clearly at the polls, according to polls.
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