The Israeli army had located them some time ago, but they were waiting for the right conditions to launch the operation.
The Argentine hostages Luis Norberto Har, 70, and Fernando Marman, 60, were rescued during the early hours of Monday in a complex operation in the town of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military offensive in that city has left between 50 and 100 Palestinian deaths, according to different sources, and was described as a “massacre” by the Palestinian National Authority.
Har and Marman, who are brothers-in-law, were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 in the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz along with 3 other relatives, who had already been released in November in an exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The two meet in good health and are now with their families.
Both hostages, with dual Argentine and Israeli nationality, were held by their captors on the second floor of a building in Rafah, a town where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are taking refuge after four months of war.
The United States, a firm ally of Israel, and much of the international community have been warning the Israeli government for weeks about the disastrous consequences of an intervention there, since the Palestinians of Gaza find themselves cornered in Rafah between the Israeli army and the border with Egypt. , which blocks their way.
There’s nowhere else to go.
But the intense bombing this morning during the rescue operation is a sign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not willing to stop at the gates of Rafah.
“Only continuous military pressure, until total victory, will achieve the release of all our hostages,” the president said on the social network X (formerly Twitter) after the rescue.
The operation, which has been carried out jointly by the Israeli army, the Shin Bet (the Israeli internal security agency) and the elite Yaman anti-terrorist unit of the Israel Police, It started around 01:49 in the morning, local time, according to army spokesman Daniel Hagari in a press conference.
Second successful rescue operation
At that time, Israeli aircraft began to intensively bombard different points in the center and north of Rafah, supported by helicopters and navy ships, according to several witnesses told the BBC.
This allowed Yaman’s forces to reach the apartment where the hostages were held, who killed three militiamen to free them.
“Getting to the target in the heart of Rafah was very complicated”Hagari said.
According to the spokesperson, the troops protected Marman and Har with their bodies from the moment they entered the apartment, “initiating a reckless battle and strong exchanges of fire in several places simultaneously.”
The men were rescued from the apartment under fire, the spokesman said, while army forces “provided them with protection in the Rafah area until they reached a safe area.”
It’s about the second hostage rescue operation carried out successfully since last October 7, after the army managed to free a soldier at the end of that month. In early December, however, the Israel Defense Forces attempted to rescue another hostage, who died in the operation.
Har and Marman were taken by helicopter to a hospital in Ramat Gan, in central Israel, where they underwent medical tests and where they were able to meet their families.
The two were kidnapped while they were sleeping in the house of Clara Marman, Fernando’s sister and Louis Norberto’s partner. Clara was also kidnapped, as well as Gabriela Leimberg and her daughter Maya.
The three were released on November 28 as part of the agreement between Hamas and Israel in which 105 hostages were exchanged for the release of 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The family is already reunited. Har’s son-in-law, Edan Begerano, told the media outside the hospital that both are apparently in good health.
“There were many tears, hugs and not many words, just being togethersurrounded by family and our loved ones who have been without us for so long, for four months,” said Begerano, who assured that they are “very happy” for the reunion.
According to the family member, “mentally they seem to be fine, physically too, but there will surely be ups and downs in the coming days and weeks.”
“We must remember that there are 134 other hostages in Gaza, we do not know what their situation is, we do not know where they are, and we must reach an agreement as soon as possible and bring more joy to our people,” Begerano recalled to the Israeli news channel Channel 12. News.
In a publication on the social network
According to the statement, during his recent visit to Israel, Milei asked Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog for the release of the Argentine hostages, “and continues to firmly maintain his condemnation of Hamas terrorism.”
International pressure
It is not clear the number of fatalities caused by the operation to rescue Har and Marman.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, 67 people were killed in the overnight bombings in Rafah, including many women and children, according to spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra. The AFP agency assures, however, that the deaths are around one hundred, also citing sources from the Strip’s Ministry of Health.
In another statement published today, the Ministry of Health assures that the total of Deaths in the Gaza Strip in the previous day reach 164with another 200 people injured.
This brings the total number of deaths to more than 28,300, and the number of wounded to 67,900 since the war began.
The Israeli military launched its operations in the Gaza Strip after more than 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel on October 7 by Hamas gunmen, who also took 253 people hostage. Several of those hostages were later released.
Several countries and international organizations have warned Israel not to carry out its planned offensive on the city, where an estimated 1.5 million people are sheltering. Most of them have fled the rest of Gaza.
Rafah, on the border with Egypt, is the only open entry point for humanitarian aid to Gazaalthough only a very small number of people have managed to get out there.
As a senior UN humanitarian official acknowledged to the BBC, there is no longer any safe place left for Palestinians in Gaza to go.
International pressure has been increasing in recent weeks. On Sunday, US President Joe Biden warned Netanyahu that the Rafah offensive should not be carried out without measures to ensure the safety of civilians.
Biden assured that Israel needed a “credible and executable plan” to protect its inhabitants, according to the White House.
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron previously noted that “more than half of Gaza’s population is taking refuge in the area”, while Saudi Arabia warned of “very serious repercussions” if Rafah were assaulted.
Netanyahu has insisted he will press ahead.
Meanwhile, Hamas rulers in Gaza said there could be “tens of thousands” of casualties, warning that any operation would also undermine talks on a possible release of Israeli hostages held in the territory.
Click to Read here for more stories from BBC News World.
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