Israel’s military carried out a rescue mission early Monday that saved two hostages but reportedly resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.
The Israel Defense Forces’s operation resulted in the rescue of Fernando Simon Merman, 60, and Luis Har, 70, both of whom are dual Israeli-Argentine citizens and were kidnapped during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel.
“Early in the morning, at 01:49, the special forces broke into a building in Rafah. There on the second floor, Luis and Fernando were held by armed Hamas terrorists who were in the building and terrorists who were in the neighboring buildings,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement. “This is an operation that we have been preparing for for some time, the necessary preparations have been made and we have been waiting for the conditions that will allow it to be carried out.”
The two hostages underwent initial medical treatment at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer.
This was the IDF’s second successful hostage recovery effort during the war, which has gone on for about four months.
The Israelis also carried out airstrikes as the raid took place, and Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is Hamas-run, told CNN that at least 94 people were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on the city of Rafah, though their death toll estimate could not be independently verified.
Israel’s military has occupied most of the population centers throughout the Gaza Strip, though the only remaining city they haven’t gone through is Rafah, the southern city nearest their border with Egypt. More than 1 million Palestinians have fled from more northern parts of Gaza into Rafah, making the city even more densely populated than before the war.
The U.S. and U.K. are among a growing number of governments and entities that have expressed concerns about the likelihood of civilian casualties should they operate in Rafah without evacuating the area, though it’s unclear where they would be allowed to move to within the strip.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Monday they are “very concerned about what is happening in Rafah” because “There’s nowhere for them to go. They can’t go south into Egypt. They can’t go north and back to their homes because many have been destroyed.”
He also urged Israel to “stop and think very seriously before it takes any further action.”
The prime minister’s office said in a statement last Friday, “it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat,” so Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has ordered the IDF and the security establishment to submit to the Cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions.”
One day prior to the announcement from the prime minister’s office, a U.S. official said that military operations in Rafah would be “a disaster for those people, and it’s not something that we would support.”
It’s unclear where the Palestinians that have fled to Rafah would be allowed to go because Israel has barred them from moving back north — and there’s overwhelming destruction in the northern and central parts of the strip — while the U.S. and other Arab countries have publicly rebuked the possible forced relocation of Palestinians out of Gaza.
Israeli leaders maintain they have to go into Rafah to ensure the defeat of Hamas.
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President Joe Biden has largely avoided directly criticizing how Israel is conducting its war, but in remarks last week, he described its conduct as “over the top.”
The U.S., Egyptian, and Qatari governments are seeking to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire that would ensure the release of the remaining hostages. More than 100 hostages remain in Hamas’s control in Gaza. It’s unclear how the hostage rescue mission affects a potential ceasefire deal.