Israel Frees Four Hostages in a Daring Operation - An in Depth Account
June 17, 2024 - Issue #53
Over the last 10 days, we have witnessed five significant events involving Israel:
The IDF rescuing four hostages held by Hamas.
Hamas’ failure to accept a new ceasefire proposal virtually identical to one it proposed in early May.
Hezbollah firing more than 300 missiles and 30 drones into Israel over just two days.
Minister Benny Gantz leaving Israel’s war cabinet.
The IDF taking control of half of Rafah.
Collectively, they lead to a question—has Israel reached a decision point and what might, or should, that decision be? I intend to address this question in my next newsletter, but first I think it instructive to delve in this post into the details of Israel’s breathtaking hostage rescue operation and the world’s reaction to it. To do that, I have put together information gleaned from multiple open sources, some conflicting, and done my best to discern from them what happened.
The Preliminaries
On May 12, Israeli intelligence learned of the approximate location of four hostages held by Hamas at the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza. The Nuseirat camp has existed since 1948 and by 2024 had about 85,000 inhabitants. This news of hostages present in the camp prompted a massive intelligence gathering effort focused on uncovering their exact location. It was an effort that included aerial photography and eyes on the ground in the form of undercover operatives that daringly infiltrated the market area dressed as locals. Their task was to gather new information and verify pertinent information received from previously captured terrorists.
By the beginning of June, Israeli intelligence was certain it knew where the hostages were held. But there was a problem. Noa Argamani,
the women the world saw screaming in terror in an iconic video while being transported into captivity on the back of a terrorist driven motorcycle on October 7, was being held by civilians friendly to Hamas in a first-floor apartment of one building. Meanwhile the other three hostages, all men, were imprisoned in a third-floor apartment of a building hundreds of yards away from Noe. They were being held by a Hamas activist medical doctor. Also present was his son, who appears to have been a parttime journalist or freelancer for at least two Arab media outlets.
Immediately, operation planners recognized that the distance separating the imprisoned hostages would make an already difficult rescue operation much more complex because both locations would have to be attacked simultaneously. Otherwise, if the captors in one building heard sounds of battle in the other, their first move would likely be to kill the hostages they were holding.
In early June, Israel’s intelligence community informed Israel’s war cabinet about what had been discovered. The war cabinet then began debating whether to approve an attempt to rescue the hostages. This was no easy call. There was great potential for the hostages to be murdered by their captors as the attack unfolded, a significant possibility that the rescuers would lose their lives and/or be captured, and, of course, there was the issue of Gazan civilian lives put at risk. But counterbalancing that was Israel’s promise to its people that it would go to great lengths to bring home captured Israelis, even just the bodies of dead ones. We have seen that sentiment throughout Israel’s history at the cost of countless lives of rescuers and releases of prisoners at absurd ratios that one time was more than 1,000 Palestinian terrorists and criminals to 1 IDF soldier. So too with the miracle at Entebbe, when Israel took huge risks to successfully free Israeli and other Jewish hostages. This national trait is part of the glue that keeps Israeli society united and makes it special—an unshakable bond between fellow citizens and a burden that the country embraces. These feelings are especially pronounced for the October 7 hostages, taken by a callous Hamas that coldly calculated that Israel’s inability or unwillingness to affect a rescue would disrupt Israeli society. Disrupt it because of the value Israelis places on securing its innocents from terrible suffering at the hands of their captors and the impotency felt by their failure to do so. Thus, I think, there was little doubt that any feasible operation would be approved and so the war cabinet did.
Then, to further verify the information the IDF had, more soldiers went undercover into Nuseirat refugee camp, including women in hijabs and long, black dresses. They even rented a large home on the same street Noe was held. From this homebase, according to a Jewish Chronicle article, they split into two teams that reconnoitered the area around each hostage site. Fluent in the local Arabic dialect, the method of operation each unit employed was to use a lead group composed of one or more women (one pretend to be pregnant) that combed the area., stopped at shopping stalls, and engaged locals in conversation. Backing up each lead group should trouble start was a second team of four undercover men. This was Fauda come to real life! After three hours, the teams returned to the rented house, where they were met by five guards left behind. After processing what they had learned, that included confirmation of the locations of the hostages, they then forwarded the information to their commanders. Think about what they must have felt and feared—nineteen undercover Israelis in an environment rife with danger risking their lives to rescue four hostages.
Now, with further confirmation of where the hostages were held, the war cabinet approved moving to the next stage in the process. Secretly, the IDF built structures that mirrored the buildings in which the hostages were imprisoned. There, the twenty-eight strong commando unit tasked to mount the rescue spent three days practicing their mission. Meanwhile tension mounted, not the least of which because of concerns regarding whether the plan would remain secret now that hundreds of soldiers were necessarily involved.
On June 7, at 6:30 PM—Prime Minister Netanyahu greenlighted the operation.
The Rescue
At 10:00 AM, on June 8, two strike teams, one for each building, reportedly entered Nuseirat camp in one or two civilian trucks. Unlike most rescue operations which are conducted at night, the IDF did this one during the day in hope that the captors would be less vigilant during daylight than when it’s dark.
An hour later, once the two teams were in place, they received approval to storm the buildings. Noe’s rescue went smoothly—her first knowledge of impending freedom came when she heard a knock, some yelling and then in Hebrew, “You are being rescued!” After eliminating the terrorists guarding her, the soldiers hustled Noe to a helicopter that evacuated her to Israel. It took just six minutes.
But the rescue of the three male hostages did not go so smoothly. While a few soldiers used a ladder to climb directly into the room where the hostages were held, others, led by their commander, Arnon Zamora, burst into the apartment by way of the building’s main entrance. There, they encountered as many as thirty terrorists—a force far larger than they expected. A fierce firefight ensued, during which Zamora was seriously wound. During this violent struggle, some of the commandos hid the hostages in a bathroom and stood guard over them. At 11:15 AM, the words those in charge in Israel ached to hear blasted through their radio, “The diamonds are in our hands!” Meaning the hostages had been secured.
But the firefight was not over—in fact the worst was about to begin.
By 11:20 AM, while the gun battle still raged inside, dozens of heavily armed terrorists had already emerged from nearby tunnel exits and surrounded the building. And more were coming, navigating their way through Nuseirat’s narrow alleys crowded with Gazan civilians. Two minutes later, with the fighting over inside the building but aware of their peril, the Israelis left the building and tried to escape in a rescue vehicle parked outside. But explosive RPG’s and a hail of terrorist gunfire disabled it!
Some reports suggest that another IDF armored vehicle then came forward to rescue the trapped Israelis, but terrorist gunfire disabled that vehicle too. Another report said that the Israelis temporarily sought shelter in another building. But clearly, whatever else happened in those desperate moments after their vehicle was disabled, the commandos knew they did not have the firepower to hold off their crazed attackers for long. Trapped, they were too few and their assailants too many. In minutes, or even moments, they would be overwhelmed—lynched, killed, or added to Hamas’s hostage inventory. A horrific end to a noble attempt loomed. A failure with incalculable impact on Israel’s morale and future.
But fortunately, the IDF had planned for such an emergency. By 11:25 AM, IDF fighter jets and helicopters reached the scene. Their firepower created a ring of fire that isolated the area from other terrorists arriving and that killed many of those besieging the Israelis. If they had not done so, those heroic commandos and the rescued captives would have been slaughtered.
Then, IDF reinforcements, pre-positioned for this emergency contingency, poured into the area. Quickly, they secured a safe exit route to the beach where helicopters landed to extract the rescue force and the hostages—all while terrorist forces dozens of yards away tried to stop them. By 11:50 AM, the last special forces soldier and the three hostages were safely on their way back to Israel.
Zamora died in one of the helicopters before it could get him to the hospital.
The Reaction
Hamas’ mouthpieces reacted as one would expect—announcing a Palestinian death toll that kept rising until it reached 274—but of course without differentiating between terrorists and civilians and whether they died from terrorist or IDF fire. The IDF responded that it estimated the death toll around 100, of which many were terrorists, but admitted some were civilians. Likely, the real number will never be known but hastily written headlines worldwide blared out the Hamas reported casualty account even though they knew it was suspect, as have been previous Hamas Health Ministry death counts communicated well before it would have been humanly possible to obtain an accurate count. But not too soon to impact world opinion, which was the real purpose of the rush to release the body count, falsified or not.
Also, Hamas apologists went on the attack. Without any thought of the hostages imprisoned, how they had been taken, or criticism of the civilians who enjoyed the benefit of their slave labor and acted as guards, they slung accusations of Israeli war crimes. Of course, they made no mention that Israel relied on stealth, not massive firepower, to rescue the hostages and that only when the terrorists initiated a gunbattle in Nuseirat’s alleyways that would have resulted in the death of the Israeli rescuers and the freed hostages did the IDF use more firepower to facilitate their escape. What then was the IDF supposed to do? Let its soldiers and the hostages die at the hands of a frenzied mob? There is no rule of international law that requires that. And even if there was, no nation would honor it.
And what about the terrorists? Why did they fire their weaponry in the middle of the camp risking the lives of their fellow Gazans? A Wall Street Journal report revealed messages Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza sent to Hamas’ leaders in Doha. In them, Sinwar cites with approval conflicts, like in Algeria, where hundreds of thousands died fighting for independence, and said “these are necessary sacrifices.” And Sinwar said that large numbers of Gazan civilian casualties “would create worldwide pressure on Israel.” I suspect the terrorists flooding towards the Israeli commandos Nuseirat didn’t care how many Gazans would die—whether at their hand or Israel’s—because either way would suit Sinwar’s purpose. The question is, why doesn’t the world focus on Hamas’ willingness to expend Gazan lives for its craven cause?
And then there are those that question whether the hostage rescue mission should have been undertaken due to the risk of civilian casualties should the terrorists not play nice. But that kind of thinking sentences the hostages to possibly suffer the fate of many of their fellow kidnap victims—a lonely forlorn death by force, physical and emotional decline, and/or sexual violence and slavery.
As such, I embrace Israel’s decision to rescue the hostages and applaud how they went about doing it. The operation was correct, moral, and measured. Furthermore, Israel went the extra yard by putting many of its soldiers in jeopardy to conduct a precise but risky operation that had the potential to have minimal impact on civilians in the area as evidenced by the success they had in extricating Noe. That things went south while rescuing the other three hostages was due to two things: the uncertainties of war present in any military operation and Hamas’ desire, not Israel’s, to fight in a civilian area. I have no problem balancing against that the moral imperative to free, when you can, innocent tortured souls taken against their will into captivity and imprisoned by supposed non-combatants in a civilian area. And if there was a high civilian death count, then it was Hamas’ doing. If the world continues to refuse to see it that way then that is more evidence of what I wrote two weeks ago—when Jews fight back they are vilified.
If you think otherwise, that Israel should have allowed its people to continue to suffer when it had the means to rescue them, then you are asking Israel to do what no other nation should or would do—abandon its people to the mercies of monsters.
The Funeral
Thousands packed Arnon Zamora’s funeral the day after the rescue. Nearby, rows of gravestones bore the same date of death—October 7, 2023. Perhaps a dozen people gave eulogies—all of them along with the other mourners, struggling to hold back tears. Then, the uncle of one of the rescued hostages addressed those gathered. In a shaky voice filled with gratitude, he expressed his deep appreciation for all who risked their lives to free his nephew and the other hostages. His emotion overcame the crowd. Tears began to flow.
Last to speak was Zamorah’s wife. Daniel Gordis reports the moment. After talking about her heroic husband beloved by his unit, she took out her phone and said, “Noam and Itai [their sons] are not here, but they nevertheless asked that their voices also be heard.”
Then she played a recording of one son first, then the other.
“Abba, I love you and I miss you.”
“Abba, I love you.”
Last Sunday, I woke up to a post by Sheri Oz, author of Israel Diaries. It consisted of a wonderful review of a book I wrote in 2019, now as relevant as ever, titled Living in Heaven, Coping with Hell: Israel’s Northern Borders—Where Zionism Triumphed, the Kibbutz Evolves, and the Pioneering Spirit Prevails. You can find Sheri’s review here and a link to the book’s Amazon page here.
I am so appreciative of Sheri for three reasons:
Her amazing review that captured the spirit of my book.
Reading the review re-acquainted me with the basis for my passion for Israel’s northern border regions that now makes me so angry regarding what has befallen it since October 7.
Sheri’s frequently published Substack newsletter, Israel Diaries, always interests and educates me. She has a nose for the unique vignette,that has large repercussions. I really encourage you to check it out.
So I thank Sheri.
And, I also thank all of you.
My June 3 newsletter titled When Jews Fight Back They Are Vilified - When They Don't They Are Slaughtered set personal records for unique views and produced 7x the average number of likes. Apparently, my concerns are shared by all of you and I thank you for allowing me to enter your lives for a few short minutes while you read what I write. It means much to me and motivates me to continue.
Also, if you have an interest in the danger Hezbollah presents and how it came to be, you might consider purchasing my book which can be obtained on Amazon here.
Daily Update June 13-16, 2024, 03:00 pm – Northern Arena—Written by Dana Polak Kanarik for the Alma Research and Education Center—June 16, 2024
Half of Hamas in Rafah Beaten, IDF Will Gain Full Control in Two Weeks—Written by Yonah Jeremy Bob for the Jerusalem Post—June 17, 2024
I Went to Cover a Protest. I Was Surrounded by a Mob: But in the context of other incidents over the past 24 hours, what happened to me was mild.—Written by Olivia Reingold for the Free Press—June 11, 2024
Protestors in New York City Call for 'Zionists' to Leave Subway Train—Video shows protesters on a subway car chanting antisemitic threats and telling “Zionists" to raise their hands and get off the train. The mayor called the incident "unacceptable anti-semitism.”—YouTube video June 12
Invading the North and Rockets to Tel Aviv: What War with Hezbollah Would Look Like—Written by Shaked Sadeh for the Jerusalem Post—June 5, 2024
Hezbollah is Using Attacks to Test Israel’s Capabilities—Written by Seth J. Frantzman for the Jerusalem Post—June 5, 2024
UN Security Council Adopts Motion Urging Hamas to Accept Israeli Hostage-Truce Offer—Written by Jacob Magid for the Times of Israel—June 10, 2024
Why is This Not Called a War Yet? —Written by Sheri Oz for Israel Diaries—June 12, 2024. Sheri lives in Northern Israel.
The Real Source of Hamas War Disinformation—Jonathan S. Tobin for Jewish News Syndicate—June 7, 2024
Michael Oren’s three-part series on the radicalization of Mid-East studies is a fascinating and must read!
Field of Fire: Fifty Years in Middle East Studies: Part I: The Article That Altered My Life.—Written by Michael Oren for his Substack Newsletter—April 11, 2024
Field of Fire: Fifty Years in Middle East Studies: Part II—Written by Michael Oren for his Substack Newsletter—April 16, 2024
Field of Fire: Fifty Years in Middle East Studies: Part III—Written by Michael Oren for his Substack Newsletter—April 18, 2024
How the UN Got Away With Wildly Inflating the Casualty Numbers in Gaza—and the Media Bought It | Opinion—Written by David Adesnik for Newsweek—June 3, 2024
Fires Rage in Northern Israel After Rocket Attacks; Key Roads Closed Off—Written for the Times of Israel—June 3, 2024
Why Israel Should NOT Have a “Day After Plan” for Gaza—Written by Daniel Pomerantz for Clarity with Michael Oren—June 6, 2024
A Multinational Authority for “the Day After” in Gaza—Written by James Jeffrey for the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune—May 2024
Let the Palestinian Authority into Gaza—Written by Professor Ephraim Inbar for the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security—May 26, 2024
Israel’s Struggle with Hezbollah—A War Without End is now available in eBook and hardback format on Amazon and IngramSpark. This compelling narrative explores Hezbollah’s origins and cancerous growth, traces Israel’s response, and reveals Israel’s present readiness to meet Hezbollah’s challenge.
Cliff Sobin
Important Link—Alma Research and Education Center: Understanding the Security Challenges on Israel’s Northern Border
https://foreignlocal.substack.com/p/the-only-palestine-i-care-about-is
Hamas are treated like children with no agency by the pro Hamas western media. They initiated the gun battle to keep hostages and their rescuers. Any so called civilian death is on them.