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On Saturday, 8 June 2024, Israeli forces rescued four hostages who were abducted from the Nova music festival on 7 October and held by Hamas ever since – Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv – and returned them to Israel. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed and injured in the operation. Their only crime was living or sheltering in a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, where the hostages were held.
According to a statement issued by the Hamas Ministry of Information, based on figures collected from the Ministry of Health and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, 274 Palestinians were killed in the operation, including 64 children and teens, 57 women and 37 elderly people; 698 people were injured, including 153 children and 161 women. One member of the Israeli armed forces was also killed, apparently in an exchange of fire with Hamas operatives guarding the hostages. Most of the deaths were apparently caused by the massive fire launched at a-Nuseirat R.C. during the operation, the exchanges of fire during the extraction of the three male hostages, and the massive firing around the two compounds where the hostages were held in order to free a military vehicle that got stuck.
Freeing the hostages is a worthy goal, especially as Hamas chose to abduct them and does not intend to fulfil its duty to release them unconditionally. Their families are understandably relieved to have their loved ones back after more than eight months in mortal danger in Gaza. Yet the cost to Palestinian lives is horrifying – and predictable, given Israel’s policy on use of force in Gaza. Hamas held the four hostages in two residential apartments inside a crowded refugee camp, compounding the original crime of abducting them. Yet this does not absolve Israel of the duty to refrain from unlawful attacks that will certainly cause disproportionate harm to civilians.
The Israeli government must, therefore, stop promoting the ill-founded idea that hostages can, and should, be freed in military operations. It must immediately reach a deal with Hamas to cease hostilities in Gaza and release the remaining hostages in a prisoner exchange.
Palestinian journalist Safinaz a-Loh described the intensity of the military assault on the refugee camp in a testimony she gave B’Tselem:
SAFINAZ A-LOH
The tanks were shelling and there was another kind of heavy shooting. It was so massive that people were crawling on the ground to find cover. It was horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it. Wounded people were running along the street and women were holding wounded children in their arms. Bullets landed near my feet. […]
I filmed people holding bleeding children in their arms, a guy carrying half the body of another guy, women running madly on the street with their heads uncovered, people falling on the ground because of the shooting and mayhem. I fell down, too, and two guys and a woman fell next to me. I saw children on the street without their families, and a child alone who was killed. [...]
At that point, I saw masses of people on the streets who didn't know where to go to escape the bombings. They started running towards a-Zawaydah and Deir al-Balah. Lots of men, women and children. The fighter jets were bombing like crazy. There were wounded and dead people everywhere, and no ambulances to take them to hospitals. [...]
Just then, a drone bombed the spot where I was standing. A child and a young man were killed, and several people were injured. I was hit by shrapnel in my left leg and fell. There were no ambulances or civilian vehicles to evacuate us. I called my sister Asil and told her I was hit. A few minutes later, her husband came to get me, and that’s when I fainted. I came to at my sister Asil’s house. They got a medic to come there and clean and bandage my wound.
About an hour later, I went back out to the street to cover what was happening. I reached the area around al-Awda Hospital. Whole blocks of buildings were gone, vanished. The remaining houses were on fire, and people were burning inside them. There were no firefighters, rescue forces or ambulances.
According to Israeli media and eyewitness accounts from Gaza, the Israeli forces posed as displaced Palestinians to get to the compounds where the hostages were held. One video from the scene shows a civilian truck moving among the forces.
KHALIL A-TAHARAWI IN A-NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, 12.6.24
Khalil a-Taharawi, who owns a building supplies store near where the hostages were held, said in his testimony:
Suddenly, I noticed something strange going on outside my shop. I saw a white civilian truck loaded with possessions and furniture of displaced people. We went out and stood in the doorway of the store, which is about five meters away from the front door of our neighbor, Ahmad al-Jamal. [...] Suddenly, we saw two men in al-Qassam uniforms, black helmets and green shields, and carrying AK-47s. They put a ladder up against the neighbor’s porch. I got scared, and then I saw two other armed men, dressed the same way, inside the truck. About a minute later, another vehicle showed up and two armed men got out and immediately started shooting at anything that moved. At the same time, all kinds of drones started bombing, as well as a helicopter and F-16s.
We ran back into the store and lay down on the floor to duck the fire. Three other people came in with us: the son of my wife’s sister, another guy, and our neighbor ‘Issam al-’Aruqi, who was also hanging out by the store to see what was happening. The armed men fired two shots at him. They hit him and he fell down, wounded.
If combatants posing as displaced civilians did take part in the fighting that caused these deaths and injuries, that constitutes a violation of the prohibition on perfidy in international humanitarian law. The prohibition was introduced in order to protect civilians from harm, should they be suspected as disguised combatants or find themselves in a combat zone after failing to detect disguised combatants operating nearby.
The operation not only put the lives of the four hostages at serious risk, from the intense exchanges of fire or their captors, but also put all the other hostages at risk. They are now sure to be held in much harsher conditions and greater risk to their lives, as long as their captors suspect a possible military operation to free them. All this underscores the need for a deal, including a complete cessation of fighting in Gaza.