Officials in Gaza say Israeli forces killed 274 Palestinians, including at least 64 children, in the Nuseirat refugee camp during an Israeli military daytime raid on Saturday to free four Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza since October 7. The hostages had been held in two apartments in Nuseirat, one of the largest refugee camps in Gaza. For two hours Israeli forces attacked the area by air, land and sea. One Israeli soldier died in the raid. Hamas is claiming three other hostages were also killed. Over 700 Palestinians were injured inside the refugee camp. A survivor described the massacre.
Khaled al-Saadouni: “We were in Nuseirat camp. Special forces arrived from an Apache helicopter, and there was a white car with special forces. The Apache started to bomb and fire directly at people. There was a large number of martyrs and injured people. People fled. There’s a big number of displaced people. Schools and hospitals are filled with displaced people. There is a large number of martyrs, and firing was direct. We brought 10 injured people in one ambulance. One of them was shot directly. We barely made it out through the alleyways.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an emergency U.N. Security Council session to discuss what he called a “bloody massacre” as the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has topped 37,000.
The United States reportedly provided intelligence to Israel to aid the hostage rescue effort, including drone imagery collected over Gaza. For months the U.S. has been flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza.
Israel evacuated the hostages from a beach near where the U.S. built a temporary pier to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. The U.S. has denied the pier was used during the Israeli military operation. Israel is also denying claims that it used a humanitarian aid truck to infiltrate the refugee camp.
The Israeli military said the four hostages — Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv — were all in good medical condition.