By Jerald Jimenez
09 Jun 2024, 09:22 AM EDT
The death toll during the rescue operation carried out by Israel in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, which resulted in the release of four kidnapped people, reached 274. This fact caused the death toll to increase to more than 37,000 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas.
During the operation, 698 individuals were injured due to Israeli fire, and the total injury count since October 7 rose to 84,494 across the territory, mostly women and children, the ministry says. Including these figures, 283 Gazans died and another 814 were injured across the region in the last 24 hours.
The four released were identified as Almog Meir Jan, 21 years old; Andrey Kozlov, 27; Shlomi Ziv, 40; and Noa Argamani, 25, who had been in captivity since they were kidnapped after being at the ‘Nova’ music festival on October 7.
The rescue process occurs at a critical time for both external and internal tensions in Israel, with a violent increase on the border with Lebanon and pressure on the Government to try to reach an agreement for the release of the rest of the captives with Hamas harassing to the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz was expected to leave Netanyahu’s emergency executive on Saturday night, but had to postpone his appearance over the release of the captives.
So far, there are 120 captives of the 251, at least 40 of them dead, according to Israel, while Hamas assured that there are more than 70. Meanwhile, four people have been held captive for years, two of them already dead.
Israel and Hamas only reached a one-week truce agreement in late November, which allowed the release of 105 captives in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Four captives were freed by Hamas in October, seven rescued by the Army, two of them in February in a successful operation in Rafah, while 20 captives were rescued.
With information from Deutsche Welle