Dramatic moment IDF commandos rescue terrified Israeli hostages from apartments before firing at fleeing Hamas captors
HEARTRACING video shows the moment Israeli forces rescued three hostages trapped in Gaza before battling their Hamas captors.
Israeli troops stormed an apartment, pouring in through a living room and into a darkened bedroom where they found three men sheltering in the dark.
The daring mission carried out on Saturday saw Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) rescue Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40.
Noa Argamani, the 26-year-old woman whose story made headlines in October after she was snatched by Hamas, was also saved on Saturday from a nearby site.
A hail of gunfire can be heard in the video as IDF troops smash open the apartment door, along with what appears to be children shouting and screaming in the background.
Shlomi Ziv, lying on a bed, holds his hands above his head in the footage as troops storm into the dark bedroom.
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As the sounds of fighting rage on outside, the hostages huddle together and shield themselves.
Almog Meir Jan jumps to the bed where Shlomi is sitting, barefoot, as they grip onto each other.
The footage then pans to the troops filing outside, as more gunfire is exchanged - presumably as the Israeli troops fight off Hamas operatives nearby.
The freed hostages can be seen running barefoot as they're led away from captivity.
Israel conducted the raids in the Nuseirat area of the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
Officers from the elite police counter-terrorism unit Yamam along with Shin Bet agents raided two buildings simultaenously.
All four of the hostages were taken by Hamas on October 7 last year, when the terror group launched a brutal attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
One of Noa's relatives told press the troops had banged on the door of where she was being held in Gaza and yelled that they had come to rescue her.
Asaf Shaibi said: “She told me a little. It was 10am and they banged on the door and shouted ‘It’s the IDF and we’ve come to rescue you'".
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed that Israel's forces came under heavy attack during the mission.
He said the commandos working to save the hostages responded by firing “from the air and from the street".
Hagari said: "We know about under 100 [Palestinian] casualties. I don’t know how many of them are terrorists."
Israeli forces also said a special forces commander was killed during the operation.
The hostages were bundled into choppers after the impressive raid and rushed to hospital in Israel to be checked over.
The IDF has said that the four hostages were being held by terrorists in the homes of Gaza families in two Hamas-controlled buildings.
Hamas has previously been accused of using civilians as human shields.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 274 Palestinians were killed, including children, during the raid.
Israel estimated that less than 100 people died.
Gazan paramedics and residents said the assault killed scores of people and left mangled bodies of men, women and children strewn around a marketplace and a mosque.
Local Abdel Salam Darwish told the BBC he was in a market buying vegetables when he heard gunfire and fighter jets.
He said: "Afterwards, people's bodies were in pieces, scattered in the streets, and blood stained the walls."
Who are the four freed hostages?
Noa Argamani
The student was at the Nova music festival in the Israeli dessert when she was kidnapped by Hamas fighters.
Harrowing footage emerged of the militants dragging her away on a motorcycle as she begged "Don't kill me".
The 25-year-old university student screams "Don't kill me! No, no, no", as the gunmen speed away with her trapped in between them.
Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, is held tightly by two other terrorists nearby as he watches his helpless girlfriend in horror.
Noa's family only discovered she had been taken when they stumbled upon the disturbing footage online.
Almog Meir Jan
The 21-year-old was also attending the Nova music festival on October 7 when he was seized.
His mum, Orit, said in an interview he had been due to start a new job in Israel’s “high-tech” sector on October 8.
Almog had been attending the music festival with a friend who was killed and later burned.
Orit said her son had called her at 7.45pm on October 7 to tell her the festival had been stopped and he would call her back every hour – but he never phoned again.
One of his pals is said to have identified Almog in a video clip published by Hamas several hours later.
Andrey Kozlov
The 27-year-old was working as security guard at the music festival on October 7 when he was kidnapped.
He is a native of St Petersburg, Russia, according to the Times of Israel, and had moved to Israel 18 months earlier.
Andrey lived near Tel Aviv with friends before his capture.
Shlomi Ziv
The 40-year-old was also working as a security guard at the Nova music festival.
He spoke to one of his sisters, telling her he was heading home from the festival after the Hamas attack had started.
Shlomi told her there was a bottleneck of cars, according to a Times of Israel report.
He had been at the event with a friend and relative of his wife.
Both died in the massacre.
It was several weeks before his family knew he had been taken hostage.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 saw around 1,200 people slaughtered, sparking eight months of brutal war in the besieged Strip.
Gunmen took around 250 hostages back to Gaza on October 7, more than 100 of whom were released in exchange for about 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails during a week-long truce in November.
Efforts to secure another hostage release or ceasefire since then have been unsuccessful as the fighting rages on.
Touching footage from the choppers showed some of the freed hostages looking out at Israel as the jet came in to land.
And heartwarming photographs later showed them reuniting with their loved ones in hospital.
Noa's particular case became one of the most recognisable after the horrors of the October massacre, as footage of her being ripped away from her boyfriend shocked the world.
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She was seen being loaded onto a motorbike as she pleaded with Hamas gunmen "don't kill me".
The brave woman was kept in a small child's bedroom for 245 days and did not see sunlight.
