Hostage rescue in Israel: How the operation went

As part of an operation planned for weeks, the Israeli military rescued four hostages from the center of the Gaza Strip.

For Israelis, the attack was a cause for celebration and relief. For Palestinians, it was accompanied by even greater suffering. Hospitals reported that dozens of people, including children, were killed in the attack on the densely populated Nuseirat camp.

The attack, dubbed “Seeds of Summer,” was unusually carried out in daylight, which the Israel Defense Forces said allowed for a greater element of surprise.

Since it was morning, the streets were busy as people were shopping at a nearby market.

This also meant a greater risk for Israeli special forces, not only when entering but especially when leaving the country.

A special forces officer was injured and died in hospital, Israeli police said.

“It was on a par with Entebbe,” said Israel Defense Forces chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, referring to Israel’s rescue of 100 hostages in Uganda in 1976.

He said that after entering Gaza from Israel, special forces, acting on intelligence, simultaneously searched two apartments in Nuseirat where the hostages were being held.

In one apartment was the hostage Noa Argamani, 26. In the other were 41-year-old Shlomi Ziv, 27-year-old Andrey Kozlov and Almog Meir Jan, 22.

Mr Hagari said they were not in cages but in locked rooms surrounded by guards.

He said Israeli commandos forced their way in, seized the hostages, wrapped them up and provided them with human shields before loading them into military vehicles outside.

He said they faced fierce resistance from Palestinian fighters during their withdrawal.

Mr Hagari said the Israeli military had planned the raid down to the last detail and had even built models of the two apartments for training purposes.

According to BBC partner CBS News, which cited two US officials, the US also provided Israel with intelligence support for the operation.

Cellphone videos from the scene show people running for cover as rockets hit and shots are fired.

Later images showed bodies scattered on the street.

The raid appears to have been carried out with massive violence. Doctors at the two hospitals in central Gaza said they counted more than 70 bodies.

Mr Hagari estimated that there were fewer than a hundred dead, while Hamas’s media office reported more than 200.

The BBC could not confirm the number of victims.

“I have collected the body parts of my child, my dear child,” Nora Abu Khamees, who is seeking refuge in Nuseirat, told the BBC, breaking down in tears.

“My other child is between life and death. Even my husband and my mother-in-law, our whole family is destroyed. This is genocide.”

Ten-year-old Areej Al Zahdneh told us in a nearby hospital that there had been air strikes, tanks and gunfire.

“We couldn’t breathe. My sister Reemaz was hit in the head by shrapnel and my five-year-old sister Yara was also hit by the shrapnel.”