Israel army says rescued 4 hostages alive in Gaza

GAZA (AFP): The Israeli military said its troops had rescued on Saturday four Israeli hostages alive from Gaza after a “complex daytime operation”.

“Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir Jan (21), Andrey Kozlov (27), and Shlomi Ziv (40), were kidnapped by the Hamas from the Nova music festival on October 7,” the military said in a statement, adding the four were in “good medical condition.”

“The hostages were rescued… from two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat” in central Gaza, the military added.

The rare rescue comes eight months into war with Hamas in Gaza. During their October 7 attack on the music festival and other areas of southern Israel, militants took 251 hostages, 116 of whom now remain in the Palestinian territory, including 41 the army says are dead.

Earlier on Saturday the military said in a separate statement that forces were “targeting terrorist infrastructure in the area of Nuseirat.”

A Gaza hospital said Israeli strikes in central areas of the territory, including in Nuseirat camp, killed at least 15 people on Saturday.

“Intense Israeli air strikes in central governorate left at least 15 martyrs and tens wounded 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 group added that Israeli forces were engaged in a “brutal and savage aggression on Nuseirat camp”.

Social media footage aired by Israeli television channels showed thick plumes of smoke billowing into the sky from several buildings in Nuseirat.

In recent weeks the 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 people.