On Sunday, Israelis rejoiced at the rescue of four hostages from war-torn Gaza, while Palestinians put the casualties to a minimum. Hamas officials said the broad-daylight attack killed 274 people and injured hundreds.
Special forces engaged in heavy firefights with Palestinian militants in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday as they entered to free prisoners from two buildings and then fly them out by helicopter.
The Israeli military said the rescue team and prisoners came under heavy rifle and grenade fire, killing one policeman, and that the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes that reduced surrounding buildings to rubble.
The Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said that 274 people were killed in what it called the “Nuseirat massacre.” This updated an earlier figure of 210 deaths from the state media office. It said many women and children were among the fatalities. These figures could not be independently verified.
According to the Ministry of Health, 698 people were injured.
“My child was crying because he was afraid of the noise of the planes shooting at us,” said Hadeel Radwan, 32, from Gaza, describing how they fled the fierce fighting while holding her seven-month-old daughter in her arms.
“We all felt that we would not survive,” she told AFP, condemning “this brutal occupation that does not let us live.”
Many Israelis shed tears of joy when they heard of the release of the four prisoners, all of whom are said to be in good health – Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41.
The four were abducted from the Nova music festival during the Hamas attack on October 7. Video footage showed armed men taking Argamani away on a motorcycle while she screamed “Don’t kill me!”
The army released footage of the released prisoners hugging their families, and the government press office showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting them in the hospital.
Israel’s leading daily newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom, showed Argamani being embraced by her father on their front pages under the same simple headline: “Home.”
The financial newspaper Calcalist praised the “heroic operation” that gave Israelis “a few hours of grace,” while the left-leaning daily Haaretz called the rescue a “morale boost” for the nation.
– New clashes –
Hamas’ Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades claimed that more hostages were killed during the rescue operation, but provided no details or evidence and warned that the situation of the remaining prisoners would worsen.
“The operation will pose a great danger to the enemy’s prisoners and will have a negative impact on their conditions,” spokesman Abu Obaida wrote on the Telegram channel.
Israel’s top diplomat rejected unspecified allegations of “war crimes” related to the operation.
“We will continue to act decisively and strongly, in accordance with our right to self-defense, until all hostages are released and Hamas is defeated,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
In the recent fighting, four members of a family were killed when an airstrike hit their home in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, according to medics at Al-Ahli Hospital.
Israeli helicopters also fired east of the Bureij camp, witnesses told AFP.
And heavy artillery fire from Israeli army tanks hit central and northern areas of Rafah, officials in the southern city said.
The four released hostages are among only seven Israeli forces have rescued alive since Palestinian militants captured 251 hostages in their October 7 attack.
Dozens of hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire in November. After Saturday’s rescue, 116 hostages remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 of them are dead.
US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were among the leaders who welcomed the release of the two, although they also called for a ceasefire.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell welcomed the release of the hostages and said reports “of another massacre of civilians are horrifying… the carnage must end immediately.”
– Blinken travels to the Middle East –
On May 31, Biden launched a new initiative for a ceasefire and the release of hostages with the participation of American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, but so far there have been no tangible results.
Hamas insisted on a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from all parts of the Gaza Strip – demands that Israel firmly rejected.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit the Middle East starting Monday. This is his eighth regional tour since the attacks on October 7. Stops are planned in Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar.
Blinken insisted on Saturday that “the only thing standing in the way of achieving this ceasefire is Hamas. It is time for them to accept the agreement.”
The bloodiest Gaza war ever broke out after the attack on southern Israel on October 7, which left 1,194 people, mostly civilians, dead, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry, at least 37,084 people were killed in Israel’s military retaliation offensive, again mostly civilians.
“This horror must stop,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Saturday, explaining that 135 employees of the UN agency for the Palestinians had died in the war. This is the highest number of casualties recorded by the world organization in a conflict.
The war has caused great devastation in Gaza and forced most of the 2.4 million inhabitants to flee. The siege has driven many people to the brink of starvation.
Help arrived only sporadically by truck, airdrop or sea freight.
The U.S. military said a temporary pier damaged by a storm late last month was rebuilt and used on Saturday to deliver about 492 tons of “urgently needed humanitarian aid.”
Amid death and suffering, Israel faces increasing diplomatic isolation and is accused of war crimes in international courts.
Thousands marched through London again on Saturday calling for a ceasefire, while protesters outside the White House again denounced Washington’s support for Israel.
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