When the four Israelis woke up in Gaza on Saturday, they had been held hostage by Hamas for 245 days.
The buildings in which they were being kept, two low-rise, concrete apartment blocks, looked much like the other nearby residences in a civilian neighborhood full of Palestinian families.
Within a few hours, the captives, three men and one woman, would be reunited with their own families, the result of a risky, long-planned rescue operation in which the full might of the Israeli military would be used to devastating effect.
“I’m so emotional,” one hostage, Noa Argamani, 26, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a phone call after her release.
“It’s been so long since I heard Hebrew.”The rescue effort in Nuseirat involved hundreds of intelligence officers and two teams of commandos who simultaneously stormed the homes in which the hostages were being held, the Israeli military said.
Persons:
“, Noa Argamani, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, “ It’s
Locations:
Gaza