Who are the 4 hostages rescued by Israeli forces from captivity in Gaza?

Four Israeli hostages taken by Hamas militants at a music festival during the group’s attack October 7 terrorist attack they were rescued alive Saturday, during an attack on the Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza.

Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were kidnapped from the Nova music festival. They were recovered after the IDF announced it was attacking “terrorist infrastructure” in central Gaza.

A joint statement said the hostages were rescued from two different locations during the operation and that “their medical condition is normal.”

The rescue operation came amid a major Israeli air and ground offensive in central Gaza that has killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians, including at least 94 on Saturday.

Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and captured about 250 others, including men, women, children and the elderly. More than 100 people, mostly women and children, were released in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel during a week-long ceasefire last year.

More than 36,700 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to local health authoritiesthat do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israeli authorities believe the militants still hold around 120 hostages, of whom 43 are dead. Survivors include around 15 women, two children under 5 years old and two men in their 80s.

Here’s everything we know about the four freed captives.

Noa Argamani

Argamani, 25, has emerged as an icon of the agonizing hostage crisis that is still far from over. She appeared in a series of videos that captured the painful trajectory of her situation.

In the first, filmed by the attackers, she is forced onto a motorcycle by several men after being seized along with her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, whose whereabouts are still unknown. “Do not kill me!” she shouted with one arm outstretched and the other pinned down.

In another video released by Hamas in mid-January, she appeared thin and spoke – almost certainly under duress – of other hostages killed in airstrikes months after Israel’s massive offensive.

And then there was a third video, she was seen in family photos in the background as her mother, a Chinese immigrant in Israel who has stage four brain cancer, begged her captors to release her only son so she could see her before I die. .

“I want to see her one more time. Talk to her one more time,” said Liora Argamani, 61 years old. “I don’t have much time left in this world.”

Argamani started dating Ou about two years ago, after they met while studying at Ben-Gurion University in his hometown of Beersheba and planned to live together in Tel Aviv, his mother said. Israel’s Ynet news site. She said her son graduated in electrical engineering and was hired by international technology giant Nvidia.

Argamani’s friend Yonatan Levi told the Associated Press that she is an intelligent, free-spirited person who loves parties and traveling and was studying computer science. He said he met her on a diving course in the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat and that a few months before her abduction she asked him for help dealing with insurance claims for her mother’s care.

Almog Meir Jan

Meir Jan, 21, from a small town near Tel Aviv, had finished his military service three months before the music festival attack, according to the Times of Israel, an English-language Israeli website.

Andrey Kozlov

Kozlov, 27, worked as a security guard at the festival. He had immigrated to Israel from Russia alone a year and a half earlier, and his mother came to the country after October 7, Israeli media reported.

Shlomi Ziv

Ziv is from a farming community in northern Israel and worked as a receptionist and went to the music festival with two friends who were killed, the Times of Israel reported. The Israel Hayom newspaper said he and his wife of 17 years were trying to have children.

Haley Ott contributed to this report.