Israel says 4 hostages rescued alive as it intensifies Gaza assault
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
There is new scrutiny on Israel after its warplanes carried out an attack on June 6 on a UN-run school that a Gaza hospital said killed 37 people.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – Israel said its forces rescued four hostages alive from Nuseirat on June 8 as it intensified an assault despite scrutiny over a deadly strike on a United Nations-run school there.
The four had been kidnapped by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas from the Nova music festival during the Oct 7, 2023 attacks that sparked the war, the army said.
Ms Noa Argamani, 25, Mr Almog Meir Jan, 21, Mr Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Mr Shlomi Ziv, 40, had been “rescued... from two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat” in a “complex daytime operation”, the Israeli military said, adding that they were in “good medical condition”.
An Israeli military spokesman said the hostage rescue operation took place under fire in the heart of a residential neighbourhood, where he said Hamas had been hiding captives among Gaza civilians under guard by armed militants.
Israeli forces returned fire, including with air strikes, the spokesman, Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, added.
One Israeli special forces soldier was killed during the operation, a police statement said.
The military had said, shortly before announcing the rare hostage rescue, that troops were targeting “terrorist infrastructure” around the Nuseirat camp.
Mr Ismail al-Thawbta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, told Reuters the number of Palestinians killed in Nuseirat and nearby areas had risen to 93.
Hamas said there were “dozens of bodies of martyrs and wounded lying on the ground, in the streets and in safe rooms” and accused Israeli forces of engaging in “brutal and savage aggression on Nuseirat camp”.
The assault on Nuseirat came despite growing pressure on Israel after a strike on a UN-run school
The Israeli military acknowledged that it conducted the strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, saying it targeted a base of Hamas and killed 17 “terrorists”.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that ran the school, condemned Israel for striking a facility that it said had been housing 6,000 displaced people.
In a post on social media platform X, the agency said on June 6 that the “school turned shelter” had been hit “without prior warning”.
“Targeting UN premises or using for military purposes cannot become the new norm. This must stop and all those responsible be held accountable,” it said.
Israel accuses Hamas and its allies in Gaza of using civilian infrastructure, including UN-run facilities, as operational centres – charges the militants deny.
‘Defenceless’
The war, now in its ninth month, has brought widespread devastation to Gaza, with one in 20 people dead or wounded, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Most of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants are displaced.
This grim reality was underscored by a strike whose aftermath, depicted in an AFP video, saw men salvaging what they could from a bombed-out Gaza City building and carrying away a shrouded body in a debris-strewn alley.
Mr Maher al-Mughair, who lives nearby, recounted the attack on June 7, saying: “We heard what sounded like a drone firing a missile, followed by another coming from an F-16 fighter jet.
“So we checked and found women and children in pieces.
“What did the children and women do wrong? They are defenceless people, merely civilians,” he told AFPTV.
In the same city on June 8, five people were killed and seven wounded when an Israeli warplane bombed a home in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, Gaza emergency services said.
“We felt the shockwave in our homes,” Mr Muhammad Abu Nahl told AFPTV.
Another resident, Mr Yussef al-Dalu, was shocked that his neighbour’s house had been reduced to rubble.
“I know that only defenceless civilians live in this house who are not part of any resistance (group),” he said.
The war was sparked by Hamas’ Oct 7 attack,
Militants from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
Seventy were killed in the past 24 hours, according to the ministry.
Political fallout
Israel faced growing diplomatic isolation, with international court hearings accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognising a Palestinian state.
Israel’s UN envoy, Mr Gilad Erdan, said on June 7 he was “disgusted” that the Israeli military would be on an upcoming UN list of countries and armed forces that fail to protect children during war.
A diplomatic source later told AFP that Hamas, as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, would also be included in the annual UN report, which highlights human rights violations against children in conflict zones and is expected by the end of June.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are designated as terrorist organisations by several countries, including the United States and the European Union.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to address the US Congress in July,
Israeli media said war Cabinet member Benny Gantz cancelled a news conference that had been scheduled for June 8 – the deadline which he gave Mr Netanyahu last month to approve a post-war plan for Gaza.
Israeli media had speculated that Mr Gantz, a centrist former military chief who had been one of Mr Netanyahu’s main rivals before joining the war Cabinet, had been set to carry through on a threat to quit the government.
US diplomacy
The latest efforts to mediate the first ceasefire in the conflict since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled a week after US President Joe Biden offered a new road map.
Mr Biden, under pressure for the war to end ahead of a November presidential election, said the plan was to halt the fighting for six weeks while hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The plan would also involve the stepped-up delivery of aid into Gaza.
The Group of Seven bloc of world powers and Arab states have backed the proposal, with 16 world leaders joining Mr Biden’s call for Hamas to accept the deal.
Hamas has yet to respond to Mr Biden’s proposal.
Israel has expressed openness to discussions but remains committed to destroying the Islamist group.
Major sticking points include Hamas insisting on a permanent truce and full Israeli withdrawal – demands Israel has rejected.
In a new diplomatic push, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Israel and key regional partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar from June 10, on his eighth Middle East trip since the war began.
The top US diplomat would “emphasise the importance of Hamas accepting the proposal on the table” which “would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians”, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. AFP, REUTERS
