- Noa Argamani, 26, was rescued from captivity in Nuseirat, Gaza last Saturday
This is the moment IDF forces in Gaza swept in to rescue Noa Argamani from Hamas captivity in a daring raid before returning her safely to Israel.
Dramatic headcam footage shows Israeli special forces breaching a compound with assault rifles and finding the 26-year-old, telling her ‘Noa, everything is alright. We’re taking you home’.
Israeli troops rescued Noa and three other hostages after 245 days in the beleaguered Gaza Strip in the largest and most successful operation of the war last week.
Noa was seen being directed by her rescuers to a car before being pulled out of Gaza in a military helicopter and returned safely to a hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Noa Argamani made front pages around the world when she was dragged into Gaza on October 7, filmed being kidnapped on the back of a motorcycle with her boyfriend as she cried out, ‘Don’t kill me!’
Noa was seen being rescued from the compound in headcam footage recorded last week
Noa Argamani, then 25, was seen kidnapped on the back of motorbike during the incursion
Video released by Israel on Twitter/X showed forces rushing in and reassuring Noa of her safety last Saturday.
It was the culmination of weeks of planning, according to Israel, and was welcomed by many at home jaded by the lack of progress in returning hostages snatched last October.
Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were also recovered in a daytime operation in two separate locations in the heart of the Nuseirat refugee camp around 11am.
Fast-paced headcam footage showed Israeli troops moving through the compound, which appeared to be a house in Gaza, with natural light and a fitted kitchen.
She is seen to be pulled out into the street as her rescuers urge her to ‘stop’, apparently checking they are clear to move before rushing her towards a car.
Grainy black and white video shared by Israel last week purported to show three hostages then taking of in an Israeli helicopter after their rescue to head back to Israel.
Israel army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the operation took place in two separate buildings ‘in the heart of a civilian neighbourhood’.
‘While under fire inside the buildings, under fire on the way out from Gaza, our forces rescued our hostages,’ Hagari said in a televised statement.
Noa had spent 245 days in Hamas captivity after being dragged from the Supernova Music Festival in southern Israel into Gaza on October 7.
During this time, she claims she did not see daylight until her rescue.
A day after the attacks, video circulating on social media appeared to show Noa sitting on a sofa in a house in Gaza drinking water from a bottle.
In January, Hamas released a chilling video of Noa from captivity and apparently under duress, calling on Netanyahu to ‘please stop the war’ and ‘bring us home’.
Images of her being kidnapped on the back of a motorcycle with her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, horrified onlookers and saw international condemnation land with Hamas.
Her partner is believed to still be in the Palestinian enclave.
Images from the scene showed a group of around 11 running along the ground in Gaza and into the waiting helicopter to escape after the daring raid last week
Noa smiles while having a drink of Coca Cola with her father Yakov after being reunited
Noa’s mother Liora Argamani has stage four brain cancer and had repeatedly expressed her desire to see her daughter again until they were reunited last week
Israel says more than 130 hostages remain, with about a quarter of those believed dead, and divisions are deepening in the country over how to bring them home.
Following her release, Noa was pictured enjoying a Coca Cola with her father, and filmed receiving phone calls from President Isaac Herzog and Netanyahu.
The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters – a volunteer-based organisation set up to help bring hostages home – called the recovery of the four hostages ‘a miraculous triumph’, and called on Israel’s government to bring home those still being held.
They said in a statement: ‘The heroic operation by the IDF that freed and brought home Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov, and Almog Meir Jan is a miraculous triumph.
‘Now, with the joy that is washing over Israel, the Israeli government must remember its commitment to bring back all 120 hostages still held by Hamas – the living for rehabilitation, the murdered for burial.
‘We continue to call upon the international community to apply the necessary pressure on Hamas to accept the proposed deal and release the other 120 hostages held in captivity; every day there is a day too far.’
But serious questions were also raised over the human cost of the rescue mission, with the Hamas-run health ministry claiming it left 274 people dead and 698 wounded.
Critics of Israel’s conduct, including many supporters of hostages, continue to urge Israel to find a diplomatic solution with Hamas to bring an end to the war and return the hostages – but progress has been slow since the negotiation of a temporary truce last November.
As troops swarmed to rescue Noa on June 8, Israel launched a deadly attack on the camp, allegedly killing scores of displaced Palestinians.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, deemed the assault a ‘massacre’.
Hagari confirmed he knew that dozens of Palestinians had been killed in the raid, but could not say how many were civilians.
Noa, who is 26, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7 and taken into Gaza
A video circulated online in the wake of the attacks appearing to show Noa in a house in Gaza, drinking water from a bottle
After her release, Noa travelled to a hospital in Israel with three other former hostages to undergo medical examination.
Video showed Noa reintegrating back into civilian life, pictured hugging her father Yakov – and calling with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express her relief.
She later revealed she was held by a ‘well-to-do’ family under armed guard and claimed she was rarely allowed to wash.
She said she never saw daylight as she was moved from house to house at night.
Israel has pounded Gaza by land and air since Hamas’ brutal incursion into southern villages in October, displacing the vast majority of the 2.3mn population and risking famine.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,296 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.