DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (news agencies) — At least 274 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more were wounded in the Israeli raid that rescued four hostages held by Hamas, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday. The military said its forces came under heavy fire during the complex daytime operation deep inside the territory.
The killing of so many Palestinians, including women and children, in an operation that Israelis celebrated as a stunning success because all four hostages were rescued alive, showed the heavy cost of such operations, on top of the already soaring toll of the eight-month-long war ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Scores of hostages are believed to be held in densely populated areas or inside Hamas’ labyrinth of tunnels, making such operations extremely complex and risky. A similar raid in February rescued two hostages while leaving 74 Palestinians dead.
The complex raid deep into Nuseirat, a built-up refugee camp in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, was the largest rescue operation since Oct. 7, when Hamas and other militants stormed across the border, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage.
Israel launched a massive offensive in response that has killed over 36,700 Palestinians, according to the ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its counts.
It said nearly 700 people were wounded in Saturday’s raid. The ministry did not say how many of the casualties were women and children, but media reporters saw several being treated at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah in the aftermath of the raid.
Israelis celebrated the return of Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41, after Israeli forces raided two locations at once while under fire.
Argamani had been one of the most widely recognized hostages after being taken, like the three others, from a music festival. The video of her abduction showed her seated between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!”
Her mother, Liora, who has brain cancer, had released a video pleading to see her daughter. Israel’s Channel 13 said Argamani was moved to the hospital where her mother is treated.
In Gaza, medics described scenes of horror and chaos as wounded people poured into nearby hospitals that were already struggling to treat the wounded from days of heavy Israeli strikes in the area.
“We had the gamut of war wounds, trauma wounds, from amputations to eviscerations to trauma, to TBIs (traumatic brain injuries), fractures, and obviously, big burns,” said Karin Huster of Doctors Without Borders, an international charity working in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, one of the facilities that received dead and wounded.
“Kids completely grey or white from the shock, burnt, screaming for their parents. Many of them are not screaming because they are in shock.”
The Israeli military said it had attacked “threats to our forces in the area,” and that a special forces officer was killed in the rescue operation.
Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters Saturday that the hostages were being held in two apartments, about 200 meters (219 yards) away from each other, in the heart of the Nuseirat camp. He said the forces had trained repeatedly on a model of the apartment buildings.
Hagari said the forces moved in simultaneously in broad daylight on both apartments, believing this ensured the best element of surprise. But he said the rescuers came under heavy fire as they moved out, including from gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades from within the neighborhood.
He said the military responded with heavy force, including from aircraft, to extract the rescuers and freed hostages.
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