‘Ultimate surprise’: How an Israeli raid freed 4 hostages and killed scores of Palestinians in Gaza

Palestinians walk and travel along a street, in an area where houses have been destroyed in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 10 June 2024
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‘Ultimate surprise’: How an Israeli raid freed 4 hostages and killed scores of Palestinians in Gaza

  • There have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: They arrived in the middle of the day, when the squat concrete buildings of the Nuseirat refugee camp are stifling and the narrow streets outside are filled with people. No one suspected a thing until the shots rang out.
The Israeli raid caught everyone off guard, from the Hamas militants guarding four hostages in two different buildings to the thousands of civilians who soon found themselves running for their lives through a blistering crossfire.
By the time it was over, four Israeli hostages had been brought home alive and mostly unscathed, at least physically, and at least 274 Palestinians, and an Israeli commando, had been killed.
For Israel, it was the most successful operation of the eight-month war, bringing nationwide elation and removing some of the stain from the army’s unprecedented collapse on Oct. 7. For Palestinians, it was a day of horror that sent hundreds of dead and wounded flooding into already beleaguered hospitals.
Here’s how it unfolded, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses.
‘THE ULTIMATE SUPRISE’
Noa Argamani, a 26-year-old who had emerged as an icon of the hostage crisis, was being held in one apartment and three male hostages — Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were in another about 200 meters (yards) away. All had been abducted from a desert rave-turned-massacre site during the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war.
They had been moved among different locations but were never held in Hamas’ notorious tunnels. At the time of their rescue they were in locked rooms guarded by Hamas gunmen. Israeli intelligence figured out where they were and commandos spent weeks practicing the raid on life-size models of the buildings, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman.
“It needs to be like a surgical operation, like a brain operation,” he said.
He said they decided to strike at midday because it would be the “ultimate suprise,” and to target the two buildings simultaneously. Planners feared that if they hit one first, the captors would hear the commotion and kill the hostages in the other.
Hagari declined to say how the Israeli forces made their way to the heart of Nuseirat, a crowded, built-up refugee camp in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Based on previous operations, at least some of the special forces who took part in the raid likely dressed like Palestinians and spoke fluent Arabic.
Kamal Benaji, a Palestinian displaced from Gaza City who was living in a tent in central Nuseirat, said he saw a small truck with a car in front and another behind pull up in front of a building on the street where he had pitched his tent.
The commandos sprang from the truck and one of them threw a grenade into the house. “Clashes and explosions broke out everywhere,” he said.
A VEHICLE GETS STUCK AND A FIREFIGHT ERUPTS
The rescue of Argamani seems to have gone smoothly, while the team extracting the three other hostages ran into trouble.
Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, an officer in an elite police commando unit, was mortally wounded during the break-in, in which all the Hamas guards were killed, Amos Harel, a veteran defense correspondent, wrote in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. Then the rescue vehicle carrying the three hostages got stuck in the camp, he said.
Palestinian militants armed with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire on the rescuers, as Israel called in heavy strikes from land and air to cover their evacuation to the coast. “A lot of fire was around us,” Hagari said.
It was this bombardment that appears to have killed and wounded so many Palestinians.
Mohamed Al-Habash, another displaced Palestinian, was in the Nuseirat market looking for humanitarian aid or inexpensive food when the heavy bombing began. He took cover with a half-dozen other people in a damaged home. He said many other houses were hit.
“We heard very loud bombing and heavy gunfire,” he said. “We saw many fighter jets flying over the area.”
The Israeli rescuers eventually made it to the coast. Zamora was evacuated by helicopter and later died of his wounds in a hospital. The military renamed the operation in his honor.
Footage released by the military showed soldiers walking the hostages along the beach toward the water and helicopters whipping up clouds of sand as they took off.
‘We called the hostages diamonds, so we say we have the diamonds in our hands,” Hagari said.
THE AFTERMATH
At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir Al-Balah, the dead and wounded arrived in waves — men, women and children. It’s one of the last functioning medical facilities in the area and was already packed with people wounded in heavy strikes in recent days.
Samuel Johann, a coordinator with the international charity Doctors Without Borders, which operates in the hospital, said it was a “nightmare.”
“There have been back-to-back mass casualties as densely populated areas are bombed. It’s way beyond what anyone could deal with in a functional hospital, let alone with the scarce resources we have here,” he said in a statement released by the group.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 274 Palestinians were killed and around 700 were wounded. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tallies, but said the dead included 64 children and 57 women.
Khulood Shalaq, who was being treated at another hospital with her wounded 1-year-old nephew, said 14 members of her family were killed in the raid, with some still buried in the rubble. She said at one point she saw four helicopters launching missiles into the camp.
“The streets are filled with dead bodies,” she said.
Hamas later released a video claiming that three other hostages, including an American, were killed in the bombardment, but it provided no evidence. The army said it does “not respond to statements by terrorist organizations.”
Hamas and other militants are still holding some 120 hostages, around a third of whom are believed to have died. Hagari acknowledged that a ceasefire deal would bring home more hostages than military operations, but said Israeli forces need to “create conditions” to bring them home.
“We are doing things that are unimaginable, and we will keep on doing things that are unimagined,” he said.


US envoy calls for change in Lebanese political culture in interview with LBCI Lebanon

US special envoy Thomas Barrack talks to Lebanese television presenter Ricardo Karam. (Screenshot)
Updated 15 min 19 sec ago
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US envoy calls for change in Lebanese political culture in interview with LBCI Lebanon

  • Thomas Barrack says Hezbollah is a Lebanese problem, up to Lebanese people to solve it

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s politicians have spent 60 years “denying, detouring and deflecting,” the US special envoy Tom Barrack said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.
Barrack has been in Lebanon to talk with political leaders over Washington’s proposals to disarm the powerful militant group Hezbollah.
Asked whether the Lebanese politicians he has been dealing with were actually engaging with him or just buying time, the diplomat responded “both.”
“The Lebanese political culture is deny, detour and deflect,” Barrack said. “This is the way that it's been for 60 years, and this is the task we have in front of us. It has to change.”
After meeting President Joseph Aoun on Monday, he reacted positively to the Lebanese government’s response to a US plan to remove Hezbollah’s weapons.
In an interview with Lebanese broadcaster LBCI, Barrack said he believed the president, prime minister and the speaker of the house were being “candid, honest, and forthright” with him.
But he warned Lebanon’s politicians that the region is changing and if the politicians didn’t want to change as well “just tell us, and we'll not interfere.”
While he did not disclose the details of the US proposals, or the Lebanese response, Barrack said Lebanon’s leadership had to be willing to take a risk.
“We need results from these leaders,” he said.
Lebanon’s politicians have long been accused of corruption and putting self-interest first ahead of the good of the nation and the Lebanese people.
Public anger came to a head in 2019 with mass public protests against corruption and financial hardship.
The Lebanese economy spiraled into a financial crisis with the country defaulting on its debt and the currency collapsing.
Barrack, who is also Washington’s ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, said the US was offering Lebanon a helping hand rather than trying to interfere in its politics.
“We’ve only said one thing, if you want us to help you, we're here to usher, we’re here to help. We’re here to protect to the extent that we can,” he said.
“But we’re not going to intervene in regime change. We’re not going to intervene in politics. And if you don’t want us, no problem, we’ll go home. That’s it.”
Barrack said Hezbollah, which is viewed as a terrorist organization by the US and is also a political party with 13 MPs in Lebanon “is a Lebanese problem, not a world problem.”
“We’ve already, from a political point of view, said it’s a terrorist organization. They mess with us anywhere, just as the president (Trump) has established on a military basis, they’re going to have a problem with us. How that gets solved within Lebanon is another issue … It’s up to the Lebanese people.”
Barrack said the disarmament of Hezbollah had always been based on a simple fact for President Donald Trump: “One nation, one people, one army.”
“If that's the case, if that’s what this political body chooses, then we will usher, will help, will influence, and will be that intermediary with all of the potential combatants or adversaries who are on your borders,” Barrack said.
The diplomat dismissed media speculation that the US had set timelines for its proposals, but said while Trump had been extremely proactive on Lebanon, he would not wait long for progress.
“Nobody is going to stick around doing this until next May,” he said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president since Dwight Eisenhower who came out with such ferocity for Lebanon. On his own, he (Trump) has the courage, he has the dedication, he has the ability. What he doesn’t have is patience.
“If Lebanon wants to just keep kicking this can down the road, they can keep kicking the can down the road, but we’re not going to be here in May having this discussion.”
During the near hour-long, wide-ranging interview, Barrack, whose grandparents emigrated from Lebanon to the US, everybody across Lebanon’s many religions and sects was tired of war and discontent.
“If we have 19 different religions and 19 different communities and 19 different confessionals, there's one thing that’s above that, and that’s being Lebanese,” he said.
The Trump administration is keen to support Lebanon and Aoun, who became president in January, as the country struggles to emerge from years of economic hardship, political turmoil and regional unrest.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, had become the most powerful military force in the country and a major political power, but was significantly weakened by an Israeli campaign against the group last year.
Its weapons arsenal has remained an ongoing thorn in the side of US-Lebanon relations.
Along with disarming Hezbollah, the US proposals presented to Lebanese officials by Barrack last month are thought to include economic reforms to help the country move forward.


UN chief outlines four options for embattled Palestinian relief agency UNRWA

A review of UNRWA has identified four possible ways forward for organization that has lost US funding and been banned by Israel.
Updated 09 July 2025
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UN chief outlines four options for embattled Palestinian relief agency UNRWA

  • UNRWA is also dealing with a dire financial crisis, facing a $200-million deficit
  • US was UNRWA’s biggest donor, but former President Joe Biden paused funding in January 2024

UNITED NATIONS: A review of the embattled United Nations Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, ordered by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, has identified four possible ways forward for the organization that has lost US funding and been banned by Israel.
The proposals, seen by Reuters, are: inaction that could see the potential collapse of UNRWA; a reduction of services; the creation of an executive board to advise UNRWA; or maintaining UNRWA’s rights-based core while transferring services to host governments and the Palestinian Authority. While Guterres ordered the strategic assessment of UNRWA in April as part of his wider UN reform efforts, only the 193-member UN General Assembly can change UNRWA’s mandate.
UNRWA was established by the General Assembly in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel. It provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
“I believe it is imperative that Member States take action to protect the rights of Palestine refugees, the mandate of UNRWA and regional peace and security,” Guterres wrote in a letter dated on Monday and seen by Reuters submitting the UNRWA assessment to the General Assembly. The review comes after Israel adopted a law in October, which was enacted on January 30, that bans UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land — including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally — and contact with Israeli authorities.
UNRWA is also dealing with a dire financial crisis, facing a $200-million deficit. The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor, but former President Joe Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza. The funding halt was then extended by the US Congress and President Donald Trump.
Four options
The UN has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Hamas attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had an UNRWA job. The UN has vowed to investigate all accusations and repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided. Israel has long been critical of UNRWA, while UNRWA has said it has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organization.” Guterres and the UN Security Council have described UNRWA as the backbone of the aid response in Gaza.
The first possible option outlined by the UNRWA strategic assessment was inaction and the potential collapse of the agency, noting that “this scenario would exacerbate humanitarian need, heighten social unrest, and deepen regional fragility” and “represent a significant abandonment of Palestine refugees by the international community.”
The second option was to reduce services by “aligning UNRWA’s operations with a reduced and more predictable level of funding through service cuts and transfer of some functions to other actors.”
The third option was to create an executive board to advise and support UNRWA’s commissioner-general, enhance accountability and take responsibility for securing multi-year funding and aligning UNRWA’s funding and services. The final potential option would see UNRWA maintain its functions as custodian of Palestine refugee rights, registration, and advocacy for refugee access to services, “while progressively shifting service provision to host governments and the Palestinian Authority, with strong international commitment to funding.”


Jordan resumes aid convoys to Palestinians in Gaza as conditions deteriorate

Updated 09 July 2025
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Jordan resumes aid convoys to Palestinians in Gaza as conditions deteriorate

  • Aid and food will be distributed in northern Gaza to ensure it reaches the most affected families
  • Initiative involved the World Food Programme and the Jordanian armed forces

LONDON: Jordan on Wednesday resumed the dispatch of relief convoys to the besieged and war-torn Gaza Strip after months of an Israeli blockade that hindered humanitarian aid from reaching the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization sent 40 trucks loaded with basic food supplies into Gaza as part of Amman’s humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians. The initiative was in collaboration with the World Food Programme and the Jordanian armed forces.

The aid and food will be distributed in northern Gaza to ensure it reaches the most affected families and supports Palestinians as humanitarian and living conditions continue to deteriorate due to Israeli attacks since late 2023.

Hussein Shibli, the secretary-general of JHCO, said the resumption of convoys highlights Jordan’s commitment under King Abdullah II to support Palestinians.

Jordan collaborated with the WFP to deliver a mobile bakery that supplied thousands of loaves of bread daily to residents in northern Gaza. Shibli said that cooperation with the WFP included projects for distributing meals and clean water, because infrastructure was severely damaged during Israeli bombings.

Jordan was among the first countries to conduct airlift missions in the early days of the war, delivering relief to Gaza. More than 56,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, which have been described as genocide by human rights groups and several heads of state.


Palestinian Authority welcomes French president’s affirmation of recognizing statehood during UK parliament speech

Updated 09 July 2025
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Palestinian Authority welcomes French president’s affirmation of recognizing statehood during UK parliament speech

  • Emmanuel Macron said attacks in Gaza and West Bank put the prospect of Palestinian statehood at risk
  • He called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been launching military campaigns since late 2023

LONDON: The Palestinian Authority welcomed on Wednesday the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron during his state visit to the UK, in which he affirmed Paris’ position to recognize a Palestinian state as a way to ensure stability in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said that Macron is leading French efforts to revive the peace process with the Israeli government and contribute to implementing the two-state solution.

During his speech at the UK parliament on Tuesday, Macron said, “With Gaza in ruin and the West Bank being attacked on a daily basis, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is.

“And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is … the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region,” Macron said.

Organizers of a planned international conference sponsored by Saudi Arabia and France in mid-June had to postpone the event due to the Iranian-Israeli conflict that erupted. Several Labour lawmakers from the UK’s ruling party have called on Kier Starmer’s government to recognize a Palestinian state and to join France in this effort.

Macron also called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been launching military campaigns since late 2023 following Hamas’ cross-border raids on Israeli towns.

The Palestinian Authority urged European countries that have yet to recognize Palestine to support and follow France’s position, according to Wafa news agency.


Jailed Kurdish militant leader urges PKK fighters to disarm

Updated 09 July 2025
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Jailed Kurdish militant leader urges PKK fighters to disarm

  • Abdullah Ocalan addresses supporters days before scheduled symbolic disarmament ceremony - a first concrete step in peace process with Turkiye
  • Jailed leader says peace initiative has reached stage that requires practical steps

ANKARA, Turkiye: The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group renewed Wednesday a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state.
In a seven-minute video message broadcast on media close to the militants, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, declared that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps.
“It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations of the (Turkish parliament) and its commission, dispels public doubts, and fulfills our commitments,” Ocalan said. “I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I call on you to put this principle into practice.”
In his video message — his first public appearance since being seen during his trial more than two decades ago — Ocalan, 76, also expressed his support for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to help oversee the peace initiative.
The PKK leader, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, first urged the PKK in February to convene a congress and formally dissolve itself. Responding to his call, the PKK announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities.
Ocalan’s call to end the fighting marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.
His message broadcast on Wednesday appeared to be aimed at convincing fighters who may still be hesitant about abandoning armed struggle. He delivered his message flanked by fellow inmates.
In a speech to lawmakers from his ruling party, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he expected imminent progress in the peace initiative, adding that once firmly established, the effort would benefit not only Turkiye but the broader region. Erdogan also expressed hope that the process would advance without attempts to sabotage it.
“Once the wall of terror is torn town, God willing, everything will change. More pain and tears will be prevented,” Erdogan said. “The winners of this (process) will be the whole of Turkiye — Turks, Kurds and Arabs. Then it will be our entire region.”
“We hope that this auspicious process will conclude successfully as soon as possible, without any road accidents, and without it being sabotaged by dark and corrupt circles,” he said.
In a first step toward the PKK’s disarmament process, a group of its fighters is expected later this week to lay down their arms in a symbolic ceremony to be held in Sulaymaniyah, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Aysegul Dogan, the spokeswoman for Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party said the symbolic laying down of arms would take place on Friday.
“We consider this to be a historic moment and a historic development,” she said, adding that representatives from the party would travel to Sulaymaniyah to witness the event.
Zagros Hiwar, a PKK spokesman, said that a group of 20 to 30 fighters would descend from the mountains and destroy their weapons in front of civil society organizations and invited observers.
The PKK has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases in the area.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad announced last year an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been prohibited in Turkiye.
On Tuesday, Turkiye’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, traveled to Baghdad to discuss the peace process and other security issues with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and other officials, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.