JERUSALEM – He army Israeli reported this Saturday that it freed four hostages Israelis in a “difficult” operation in the Gaza Strip and announced that those rescued are in “good” health.
Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were kidnapped on October 7 by commandos of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas during the electronic music festival Nova, in the south of Israel.
The four were brought to Gaza following the Hamas terrorist attack that sparked the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The hostages were “rescued” at two different points in Nuseirat, in the center of the Gaza Strip, the army announced after the operation, a maneuver in which one agent died.
Currently, of the total of 251 people kidnapped on October 7 by Hamas, 116 are still held in Gaza, including 41 who have reportedly died, according to the Israeli army.
These are the profiles of the four hostages released this Saturday:
Noah Argamani
Argamani, a student at Ben Gurion University, was kidnapped during the Nova festival. A video of the young woman shouting “Don’t kill me!” as she was put on a motorcycle by Hamas fighters went around the world.
During her captivity, images were published on social networks showing the young woman drinking water from a bottle.
His partner, Avinatan Or, a 30-year-old engineer, remains kidnapped.
Before her release, Argamani’s mother, who is Chinese-Israeli and suffers from terminal cancer, posted several messages to express her despair at the possibility of dying without seeing her daughter again.
Andrey Kozlov
Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped while working as a security guard at the Nova festival. After the Hamas attack began, he contacted his father and his friends and told them that there was nowhere to hide.
His family was informed weeks later that Kozlov was among the hostages captured by Hamas.
Kozlov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and recently emigrated to Israel and lived in Rishon Lezion, south of Tel Aviv.
Shlomi Ziv
Ziv, who served 41 years in captivity, was also part of the security team at the Nova festival, according to the Israeli press.
Ziv managed to speak with one of his sisters on the day of the attack at 7:30 in the morning and told her that he was fine, that he was trying to escape in a vehicle, but that there was a traffic jam in the exit area of the party.
A little later, in his last call before being kidnapped, he spoke with another of his sisters, who reported that the man was almost out of breath and told him: “I’ll call you.”
Ziv lives with his wife in the town of Elkosh, on the border with Lebanon and usually worked as a wholesale distributor and had been employed at the festival along with two friends, who died in the attack. He had recently qualified as an interior designer.
May God protect you
Meir Jan is originally from Or Yehuda, a town east of Tel Aviv, and was enjoying the party when Hamas commandos stormed southern Israel.
Shortly before 8:00 a.m. he called his mother, Orit Meir, and said: “Mom, there are rockets falling everywhere. I don’t know what’s happening. I love you, mom.”
Shortly after the attack, Hamas released a video in which Orit Meir recognized her son.
“I was lying on the ground. I was terrified,” described the woman, who told the press in November that her life had become a “nightmare.”
Source: With information from AFP
