When Hamas militants staged the worst-ever attack on Israel, they took back into the Gaza Strip 251 hostages, some of them already dead. A year later, 64 people, including two children, are still in captivity, and Israel believes they are alive. For the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, the hostages are key bargaining chips to negotiate a truce with Israel and seek the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. But the rescue of 117 hostages Saturday has exposed divisions within Israel’s government, including an argument between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister that he had prioritized control of a security corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border ahead of efforts to bring the remaining captives home.
Those who returned home have shared their emotional stories of survival, but their families are calling for all those still being held to be freed. “We are asking that the rest of them be brought home as well,” said Judith Weinstein, whose son Gadi Haggai was among those rescued. “We want them to know that they are loved and cherished and that we will do everything in our power to get them back,” she told CNN.
The parents of Aviva Siegel, whose husband Keith was killed in the October 7 hostage takeover at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, also spoke to the media as they waited for her in a hospital. “I wished so many times that I would die,” she said, her voice choking up. “But I’m glad that my family was able to survive.”
An American cell helped support the rescue effort, a US official said. The White House welcomed the news of 117 hostages being freed but called on Hamas to release the others.
Family members of some of the rescued people expressed anger that Hamas was holding their loved ones in areas frequented by civilians. “It’s a war crime to kidnap them; it’s a war crime to hold them in the middle of crowded areas,” said Stanford University professor Allen Weiner. “Hamas has sometimes calculated that it’s worth causing tremendous suffering for its people in Gaza, as long as they gain international sympathy.”
The father of Almog Meir Jan, one of the four men who were rescued from a hospital in central Gaza on Saturday, died at home hours after learning his son had been retrieved. He was reportedly suffering from severe headaches. Emergency services called him in, but he did not respond.
Other parents have been forced to deal with tragedies in the aftermath of their loved ones’ being rescued. The mother of Watchara Sriuan, an American who was taken hostage in the Gaza attack, said her son’s body was found on September 1 in an Israeli military airstrike that targeted a tunnel used by Hamas to bring in equipment for attacks. The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Yotam Haim, and Samer Talalka have also been recovered from Israeli military operations.