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The Israeli army said it rescued Noah Arghamani, 25; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27 years old; and Shlomi Ziv, 40, in two locations in a complex daytime operation in the heart of Nuseirat on Saturday morning, attacking both locations simultaneously and under fire.
Argamani was one of the most famous hostages after he was kidnapped from a music festival in southern Israel.
Video of her abduction was among the first to emerge, with Arghamani held between two men on a motorbike as she screamed: “Don’t kill me!”
Her mother, Liora, has stage four brain cancer and in April released a video pleading to see her daughter before she dies.
An excited Argamani spoke on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an audio message released by the government, Netanyahu asks how he feels. She tells him she is “very excited,” saying she hasn’t heard Hebrew in such a long time.
The bodies of nearly 100 Palestinians killed were taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital, where Khalil Degran told The Associated Press that more than 100 wounded had also arrived.
AP reporters also saw the dead being brought to the hospital from Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah districts as smoke rose in the distance.
The Israeli army said it attacked “threats to our forces in the area”. The military reported that one fighter was seriously wounded.
Hamas took around 250 hostages during the October 7 attack, which killed around 1,200 people.
About half were released during a week-long ceasefire in November. Israel says more than 130 hostages remain, with about a quarter of them believed to be dead.
Divisions deepen over the best way to bring them home.
International pressure is mounting on Israel to curb civilian bloodshed in its Gaza war, which entered its eighth month on Friday with more than 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Palestinians are facing widespread starvation as fighting and Israeli restrictions have largely cut off the flow of aid.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week, seeking a breakthrough in apparently stalled ceasefire talks.
Saturday’s hostage recovery operation brings the total number of rescued captives to seven.
Two men were rescued in February when troops stormed a high-security apartment, and a woman was rescued after the attack in October.
Israeli troops have recovered at least 16 bodies of Gazan hostages, according to the government.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Saturday’s rescue a “heroic operation” and said the army would fight until all the hostages were returned.
Netanyahu is facing growing pressure to end the fighting in Gaza. Many Israelis are urging him to accept a deal announced last month by US President Joe Biden, but far-right allies are threatening to topple his government if he does.
Israel is stepping up operations in central Gaza, where the hostages were rescued. On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike hit a UN-run school compound in Nuseirat, killing more than 33 people inside the school, including three women and nine children.
Israel said about 30 fighters were inside at the time and on Friday released the names of 17 fighters it said had been killed. However, only nine of these names matched the records of the dead from the hospital morgue.
One of the alleged militants was an eight-year-old boy, according to hospital records.
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