KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — They arrived at midday, the squat concrete buildings of Nuseirat refugee camp were stuffy, the narrow streets outside packed with people. No one suspected anything until gunfire rang out.
The Israeli raid caught everyone by surprise, from the Hamas fighters who were guarding the four hostages in the two buildings to the thousands of civilians who were forced to flee amid a fierce gunfight.
By the end of the fighting, four Israeli hostages had returned home alive and largely at least physically unharmed, while at least 274 Palestinians and one Israeli special forces officer had been killed.
For Israel, this was its most successful operation. Eight months of warIt brought jubilation across the country, erasing some of the stain left by the unprecedented military collapse of Oct. 7, a day of horror for Palestinians when hundreds of dead and injured overwhelmed already-struggling hospitals.
According to Israeli troops and Palestinian witnesses, this is how events unfolded:
“The ultimate surprise”
Noah Al-Ghamani said, Symbolism of the hostage crisiswere being held in one apartment, while three other male hostages, Almog Meir Yan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were being held in another apartment about 200 metres away. Desert rave turns into carnage During the October 7 attack that sparked the war.
They had been moved to various locations, but were never trapped in Hamas’ notorious tunnels. When they were rescued, they were in a locked room guarded by Hamas militants. Israeli intelligence had tracked them down, and special forces had spent weeks practicing the assault in a mock-up of the building, according to Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari.
“It has to be like surgery, like brain surgery,” he said.
He said they chose to attack at midday because it would be “the ultimate surprise” and that they intended to target both buildings simultaneously — planners feared that if they attacked one first, the gunman would hear the commotion and kill the hostages in the other building.
Hagari did not say how Israeli forces advanced into the heart of Nuseira, a crowded refugee camp in central Gaza that dates back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Based on previous operations, at least some of the special forces that took part in the raid were He was dressed in what appeared to be Palestinian clothing and spoke fluent Arabic..
Kamal Benazi, a Palestinian who fled Gaza City and was living in a tent in central Nuseirat, said he saw a pickup truck, with one car in front and another in the back, pull up in front of a building on the street where his tent was set up.
The special forces jumped from the truck and one of them threw a grenade into the house. “There were crashes and explosions everywhere,” he said.
The vehicle became stuck and a gunfight broke out
While Al-Ghamani’s rescue appears to have gone smoothly, the team trying to rescue the other three hostages ran into trouble.
Veteran defense reporter Amos Harel wrote in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, an officer in the police’s elite special forces, was fatally wounded in the incursion, which killed all the Hamas guards. A rescue vehicle carrying the three hostages later became stranded inside the camp, he said.
Palestinian militants armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire on rescue teams as Israel called in heavy ground and air attacks to help evacuate people to the coast. “There was heavy fire all around,” Hagari said.
The bombing is believed to have killed and injured many Palestinians.
Another Palestinian refugee, Mohammed al-Habash, was in Nuseirat market looking for humanitarian supplies and cheap food when heavy bombardment began. He took refuge in a damaged house with six others. He said many other houses had also been hit.
“We heard very loud bombing and heavy gunfire,” he said. “We saw a lot of fighter jets flying over the area.”
Israeli rescuers eventually reached shore and Zamora was evacuated by helicopter, but he later died of his injuries in hospital. The military renamed the operation “Operation Zamora” in his honour.
Footage released by the military showed soldiers walking the hostages along the coast towards the sea, and helicopters kicking up clouds of dust as they took off.
“We called the hostages diamonds, so we say we have the diamonds in our hands,” Hagari said.
after that
Dead and wounded men, women and children continued to arrive at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, one of the last functioning medical facilities in the area and already overcrowded with those injured in the fierce attacks of recent days.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Samuel Yohan, coordinator for the international charity Doctors Without Borders, which works at the hospital.
“Densely populated areas are being bombed and mass casualties are occurring in rapid succession, far beyond the capacity of functioning hospitals, much less the limited resources we have here,” he said in a statement released by the group.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 274 Palestinians were killed and about 700 were wounded. The ministry did not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally, but said the dead included 64 children and 57 women.
Khud Sharak, who was being treated at another hospital with her wounded 1-year-old nephew, said 14 members of her family were killed in the attack, some of whom are still buried in the rubble. At one point, she said she saw four helicopters fire missiles at the camp.
“The streets are full of bodies,” she said.
Hamas later released a video claiming that the bombing killed three other hostages, including an American, but provided no evidence. The military said it “does not respond to statements by terrorist organizations.”
Hamas and other militant groups are still holding around 120 hostages, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Ceasefire Agreement He said it would be possible to bring home more hostages than a military operation, but that the Israeli military needed to “create the conditions” for the hostages to return.
“We are doing the unimaginable and we will continue to do the unimaginable,” he said.
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Jeffrey reported from Jerusalem and Shehaieb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.
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See AP’s Gaza war coverage below: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
