How Israel’s daring mission to rescue the hostages played out

A daring rescue effort originally named “Seeds of Summer” led to the rescue of four hostages from the Gaza strip.

The rescue mission, which was run in a joint effort between the IDF, Shin Bet, and the police was launched at 11am on Saturday morning after weeks of planning.

According to the IDF, the order was given to the Yamam, Israel’s counter-terror unit, and Shin Bet officers to raid two multi-story buildings in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, where Hamas was holding hostages Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41. The troops had been training for the operation for weeks.

It is understood that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant approved the operation on Thursday evening when a war cabinet and security cabinet meeting was cancelled.

The buildings where the hostages were being held were about 220 yards apart, so two teams were assembled to go into both simultaneously.

This was done due to the possibility that Hamas might kill the hostages if they worked out there was going to be a rescue mission.

Unusually, the rescue attempt was carried out in the daytime, which the IDF said allowed an element of surprise.

Days before the mission, the military launched a new operation in eastern Bureij, to the east of Nuseirat, and in east Deir al-Balah, to the southeast of where the hostages were rescued. 

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This mission was said to be part of an effort to reduce Hamas’s defences in Nuseirat, making the rescue attempt easier to carry out.

As it was daytime, the streets in Nuseirat were busy with people shopping at a nearby market.

The daylight also exposed the rescue teams to more danger in terms of getting in undetected and getting out unharmed.

One IDF officer was killed as part of the daring mission and the operation has been renamed in his memory.

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Arnon Zmora of the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit was critically injured as part of the operation to rescue the four hostage freed yesterday.

Following his death, the name of the mission was named in “Operation Arnon”.

According to the IDF, Argamani was held by Hamas guards by herself in the home of a Palestinian family, one of whom was an Al Jazeera journalist, according to Israeli media.

Footage from the rescue shows Noa being escorted by IDF officers to a waiting helicopter on Gaza beach.

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The IDF said Hamas pays families to hold the hostages in their homes.

The other three male hostages were held at a separate home.

It was at the second building where Meir Jan, Kozlov, and Ziv were held, that a major gun battle erupted.

It was during this rescue attempt that the Yamam officer, who was commanding the team, was critically wounded by Hamas fire.

According to the IDF, as the officer and the three hostages were being extracted, their vehicle came under heavy fire, leading it to get stuck.

Another team were sent in to rescue them and bring them to a makeshift helipad in Gaza.

An IDF spokesman said: “There was a large amount of gunfire and RPG fire on the rescue forces amid the operation, leading the ground troops and the Air Force to carry out major strikes in the area to protect themselves and the rescued hostages.”

In a report on Channel 12 after his rescue, Meir Jan said that he, Kozlov and Ziv were held together throughout their eight months in captivity, in four different homes.

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The IDF said it placed the blame on Hamas for the civilian casualties that occurred as part of the rescue mission and for holding hostages in a civilian environment.

Hamas fighters fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli helicopters during the operation, without success.

“It was on a scale like Entebbe,” according to the IDF’s Chief Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, referencing Israel's famous rescue of 100 hostages in Uganda in 1976.

According to Hagari, hostages were held in locked rooms surrounded by guards. He said Israeli commandos had to force their way in.

Once inside, officers formed a protective ring around the hostages before bundling them into military vehicles outside.

Mr Hagari said Israel’s military had planned the raid in detail and teams trained in staged versions of the two apartments so that they would know what to do on the day.

The teams trained for a range of different outcomes, he said.

According to US officials cited by the BBC, the mission was carried out thanks to intelligence provided by the US.

Footage from the helmet cameras shows the moments when the four abductees were transferred from Shin Bet forces to the IDF, while under fire in the heart of Nuzirat.