A video released by Israeli police shows the exact moment three hostages were located within a Gaza apartment building complex after 246 in of being held by Hamas terrorists and civilian counterparts
Dramatic body camera footage from a Yamam soldier – part of the elite counterterror force of the Israel Police – shows the moment that three Israeli hostages were found hidden in a Gaza home amid a harrowing rescue.
On Saturday, June 8, the IDF and Yamam successfully completed a rescue operation that brought home hostages taken by Hamas operatives from the NOVA music festival massacre on October 7, 2023. The attack triggered a war that has encompassed the Gaza strip since.
A video released today by Israeli police show the actual moment that three of the hostages, Almog Meir, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were found hidden in a civilian building in Nuseirat, a Palestinian refugee camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The operation has been met with scrutiny in the U.S., with some citing the high reported Palestinian death toll of more than 200. Israeli officials claim less than 100 were killed in the operation.
This is the moment the Israeli military located three hostages, who were shocked and had their hands on as the IDF entered ( Image: X/@EylonALevy)
The video starts with Israeli soldiers entering a building, shooting heard in the background. Then it shows the troops knocking down a door, and shooting someone in the corner. Then the soldiers approach three men huddled in a corner. They asked (in Hebrew), for the men’s names.
Once they confirmed that it was in fact, Almog, Andrey, and Shlomi, the video abruptly cuts to the escape, under heavy fire, with the hostages, as the group ran toward safety.
Noa Argamani, who was taken from the music festival on the back of a motorbike, was also rescued the same day, but her rescue video hasn’t been released yet. The IDF alleges that three of four hostages rescued by special forces from the central Gaza Strip over the weekend were being held at the home of Abdallah Aljamal, a journalist for the Palestine Chronicle and occasional contributor to Al-Jazeera.
One of the shocked hostages looks on as he confirms his identity to the soldiers ( Image: X/@EylonALevy)
The Chronicle, Aljamal’s employer, says that there is no weight to this claim, and point to refutations from other Gazans. “The building where Abdallah lived was one of 7 homes reportedly raided by the IDF on June 8. Hostages were held in only 2 of these buildings, not yet clear which,” Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada wrote on X.
They add that Aljamal lived on the first floor of the building raided by IDF soldiers, and the hostages were found on the third. The information on either side has not been independently confirmed.
The doctor overseeing the treatment of hostages rescued from Gaza over the weekend described to CNN the horrific conditions they endured, confirming that they were routinely subjected to abuse by their captors.
Footage of the dark civilian apartment where the three hostages were found ( Image: X/@EylonALevy)
“It was a harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day,” Dr. Itai Pessach of Sheba Medical Center stated. “Every hour, both physical, mental and other types, and that is something that is beyond comprehension.”
As per the reports by the American media outlet, Pessach claimed the eight-month ordeal under Hamas’s control had adversely affected the hostages’ health, even though they seemed to be in relatively good condition at a glance. According to Hamas’s governmental media office, an alleged total of 274 individuals lost their lives in Gaza connection to the IDF rescue operation. However, this claim remains unverified as the Gaza Ministry of Health fails to distinguish between casualties that were combatants or civilians.
While admitting to causing Palestinian civilian fatalities during the clash, the IDF shifted blame onto Hamas for having the hostages in the first place, and hiding them within a civilian ‘refugee camp’ city, as well as opening fire on the hostages and soldiers in a crowded area.
Screenshots show a regular apartment with decorative curtains and fixtures