At least 274 Palestinians were killed and around 700 people wounded in an Israeli air and ground raid on Saturday to rescue four hostages held by militants in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
The operation took place inside Nuseirat, a densly packed refugee camp home to more than 85,000 refugees.
Sixty-four of the dead were children and 57 were women, the Gazan government said, with Saturday’s death toll said by medics to be the worst for months. The Gaza health ministry’s death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
A nurse in Al-Aqsa hospital told The Independent on Saturday: “They freed four hostages and continued to aggressively and violently bomb Gaza to the point that the number of martyrs scattered in the streets reached 150 without anyone able to reach them until they finished their military operation.
“We have received approximately 500-600 injured until now. And after they completed their ground military operation, they then completely bombed the area where the operation occurred, and we are still receiving injuries.”
“There are children torn apart and scattered in the streets, they wiped out Nuseirat, it is hell on earth,” Nidal Abdo, who witnessed the bombardment, told CNN.
The deaths contribute to the more than 37,000 Palestinians that Gazan authorities estimate have been killed in the war, among the deadliest conflicts in the 21st century.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters “under 100” Palestinians were killed, and it was unclear how many of them were militants.
The operation secured the return of 26-year-old Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, aged 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, who were abducted by Hamas militants in October at the Nova musical festival being held close to the border with Gaza.
Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora, an Israeli police counterterrorism officer, died of wounds sustained in the operation, where Israeli soldiers came under heavy fire as they extracted the hostages from a pair of apartment buildings and brought them to a helicopter.
Civil defense crews in Gaza reportedly continued to find dead and wounded people buried beneath the rubble the day after the raid, which strained what little remains of Gaza’s already decimated health infrastructure.
Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell Fontelles expressed horror at the “bloodbath” and reiterated calls for a ceasefire.
“Reports from Gaza of another massacre of civilians are appalling,” he wrote on X on Saturday. “We condemn this in the strongest terms.”
The complex assault deep into central Gaza on Saturday was the largest rescue operation since Hamas stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage, triggering the current war.
The United States provided intelligence and logistical support information for the operation, The New York Times reports, citing an American official.
Argamani was one of the most widely known hostages. Video footage of Hamas militants abducting her on a motorbike as she screamed for help was widely shared.
All four former hostages were transfered to a hospital for examinations and are in good medical condition, according to Israeli officials.
Israeli leaders praised the bravery of the rescuers, who entered Nuseirat in the middle of the day.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday called the rescue “one of the most heroic and extraordinary operations I have witnessed over the course of 47 years serving in Israel’s defense establishment.”
Hagari, the IDF spokesman, criticized Hamas for holding the hostages in a civilian area.
“This was a mission in the heart of a civilian neighborhood, where Hamas had intentionally hidden among homes where there were civilians, and armed militants guarding the hostages,” he said.
Of the 250 hostages abducted on October 7, around half were released in a week-long ceasefire in November. Some 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. Survivors include about 15 women, two children under five and two men in their 80s.
Saturday’s operation brought the total number of rescued hostages to seven, including one who was freed shortly after the October attack. Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of at least 16 others, according to the government.
The latest rescue lifted some spirits in Israel as divisions deepen over how to bring hostages home – with many Israelis urging premier Benjamin Netanyahu to embrace a ceasefire deal US announced by US president Joe Biden last month. A protest last week in Tel Aviv drew a crowd of more than 100,000.
His far-right allies have threatened to collapse his government if he does.
Israeli tanks advanced into two new districts on Sunday in an apparent effort to complete the encirclement of the entire eastern side of Rafah, sparking clashes with dug-in armed groups, residents trapped in their homes said.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa of the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas which governs parts of the West Bank, is seeking an emergency session at the United Nations Security Council following the bloodshed in Nuseirat.
Outside of direct fighting, UN agencies warn over 1m people in Gaza could face famine-level hunger by mid-July.
Additional reporting by AP
