War in the Middle East: Israel releases two Hamas hostages in Rafah, where bombings kill 37

Des frappes aériennes dans la ville de Rafah, à la pointe sud de la bande de Gaza, ont fait au moins 37morts. ILLUSTRATION MAXPPP – Ismael Mohamad

Israel declared on Monday February 12 that it had freed two hostages during a special forces operation carried out in parallel with airstrikes in the town of Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, where at least 37 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured in the bombings according to local health authorities.

The two hostages – Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Hare, 70 – were kidnapped by Hamas in the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz during the attack carried out by the Palestinian group on October 7, said ;#39;Israeli army. They are in good health and were taken to a hospital in central Israel, the IDF said in a statement.

"A very complex operation"

"It'was a very complex operation," said an Israeli army spokesperson. "We've been working on this for a long time. We were waiting for the right conditions,” added Richard Hecht.

The two hostages were held on the second floor of a building which Israeli special forces managed to enter. Intense exchanges of fire took place with neighboring buildings, he said.

An airstrike was carried out to extract the commando from the area, the IDF spokesperson said.

Earlier in the night from Sunday to Monday, the Israeli army announced that it had carried out a "series of strikes" in the south of the Gaza Strip, without giving further details.

Fear of a ground operation in Rafah

According to residents contacted by Reuters via a messaging application, Israeli planes, tanks and ships took part in the offensive launched against Rafah. Two mosques and several houses were bombed, they said.

The bombings created panic, residents said, while many people were asleep. Some said they feared the launch of a ground operation by the Israeli army in Rafah, a border town with Egypt considered the last refuge for civilians displaced by the fighting for more than four months in the Gaza Strip.

Approximately one million Palestinians, out of the enclave's 2.3 million inhabitants, are in Rafah, which is also the main transportation route of food aid since the start of the siege launched by Israel in response to the Hamas attack which left 1,200 dead.