Israel rescues four hostages in Gaza; Palestinians say 50 dead in Israeli assault
World
Israel rescues four hostages in Gaza; Palestinians say 50 dead in Israeli assault
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) - The Israeli military said it rescued four hostages held since October in a raid in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday while Palestinian officials said an Israeli attack in the same area killed more than 50 people.
It was not immediately clear if the hostage rescue and the deadly Israeli assault were part of the same operation but both took place in al-Nuseirat, an often embattled area in the eight-month-old war between Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas.
The Israeli military named the rescued hostages as Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They were taken to hospital for medical checks and were in good health, the military said.
They were all kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Palestinian militant group Hamas' deadly raid on Israeli towns and villages near Gaza on Oct. 7, an attack which precipitated the devastating war in the besieged Hamas-run enclave.
Hamas's raid killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel's subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed at least 36,801 Palestinians, according to an updated tally by the enclave's health ministry on Saturday.
Palestinian militants took around 250 hostages back to Gaza on Oct 7. There are 116 now left in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies, including at least 40 whom Israeli authorities have declared dead.
It's been one week since U.S. President Joe Biden touted a ceasefire plan to stop the conflict in Gaza.
Al-Nuseirat, a historic Palestinian refugee camp, has been subjected to heavy Israeli bombing during the war and there also has been fierce ground fighting in its eastern areas.
Gaza's health ministry meanwhile reported on Saturday that Israeli military assaults in al-Nuseirat had killed and wounded dozens of people including women and children. The ministry did not say how many of the fatalities were combatants.
