Israeli is celebrating the rescue of four hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, while the death toll of more than 200 claimed by Palestinian officials, makes the raid one of the single bloodiest assaults of the eight-month-old war.
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The hostage rescue operation and an intense accompanying air assault took place in central Gaza's al-Nuseirat, a densely built-up and often embattled area in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian territory's ruling Islamist group.
Israel's forces came under intense fire during the assault and responded by firing "from the air and from the street," the spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said.
An Israeli special forces commander was killed during the operation, a police statement said.
Gazan paramedics and residents said the assault killed scores of people and left the mangled bodies of men, women and children strewn around a marketplace and a mosque.
Israel named the rescued hostages as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41. They were taken to hospital for medical checks and were in good health, the military said.
They were kidnapped from a music festival during the deadly raid by Hamas-led militants near Gaza on October 7, which precipitated the devastating war
The Hamas raid killed some 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages according to Israeli authorities, while Israel's subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed at least 36,801 Palestinians, according to an updated tally by the territory's health ministry.
More than 100 of the hostages were later released in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails during a week-long truce in November.
There are 116 captives left in the coastal enclave, according to Israeli tallies, including at least 40 whom Israeli authorities have declared dead in absentia.
The spokesperson for Hamas' armed al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubaida, said some hostages were killed during the rescue operation.
"It's a blatant lie," Israeli military spokesperson Peter Lerner told CNN.
Attempts by the United States and regional countries to forge a deal that would release all remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire have repeatedly failed as Israel presses its assault in Gaza.
Fresh airstrikes in the southern city of Rafah hit homes later on Saturday, residents and Hamas officials said.
Israeli media broadcast footage of Argamani reunited with her father, smiling and embracing him. Video of Argamani's kidnapping, showing her shouting "Don't kill me!" as she was driven into Gaza on a motorbike, had circulated soon after she was taken.
Poland praised the rescue of the hostages and said that one was a dual Israeli-Polish citizen.
US President Joe Biden welcomed the return of the four Israeli hostages rescued in Gaza. "We won't stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached," Biden said at a news conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.
A different picture unfolded in Gaza, where the Hamas-run government media office said the death toll had risen to at least 210 Palestinians with many more wounded, after medics and health officials gave earlier tolls of up to 100 dead.
The bombardment focused on a local marketplace and the al-Awda mosque, a local resident and paramedic Ziad told Reuters via a messaging app. "To free four people, Israel killed dozens of innocent civilians," he said.
Late on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinians in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics said.
The war has destabilised the wider Middle East, drawing in Hamas' main backer, Iran, and its heavily armed Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which Israeli officials are threatening to go to war with on Israel's northern border.
Australian Associated Press
