Israeli special forces have rescued a female soldier held hostage by Hamas during a raid in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said.
The first successful rescue mission came as tanks surrounded and entered parts of Gaza City for the first time, cutting off a key escape route for civilians during the Israeli ground offensive.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his military had “liberated” Ori Megidish, 19, a soldier who was captured on the “black morning” of Oct 7, and who is now back with her family.
Describing Hamas as “monsters”, Mr Netanyahu added: “We will continue to hunt you. We will strike you until you fall at our feet.”
Ms Megidish was described as being in good health, and a spokesman said she had “met with her family” after being held alone in Gaza for three weeks.
Hamas is understood to have clashed with the IDF, although officials said more details about the operations were unlikely to be released to avoid harming future rescue efforts.
Hostages’ families had previously told Mr Netanyahu that they feared a ground offensive would put lives at risk, but the prime minister assured them that sending troops and tanks into the Gaza Strip would pressure Hamas.
On Monday, Israeli tanks were seen in Gaza City, the largest Palestinian city, for the first time since the war began. The IDF cut off a key road from the south of the city towards the rest of the Gaza Strip, blocking off the main exit route for trapped civilians.
Ms Megidish’s release is a significant victory for Mr Netanyahu, who is facing questions from Israelis and the international community about his decision to launch a ground invasion of Gaza while hostages remain trapped.
Some of Israel’s allies, including the United States, favour a more “surgical” strategy of using air strikes and special forces raids over a full land invasion of the Palestinian territory.
On Monday night, Mr Netanyahu said the use of conventional forces “actually creates the possibility” of rescuing hostages because Hamas “will only do it under pressure”.
“We’re committed to getting all the hostages back home,” he said. “We think that this method stands a chance. It’s a goal that we’re committed to.”
In an address, he described calls for a ceasefire as a “surrender” of Israel to terrorists, comparing the Hamas attacks to both the bombing of Pearl Harbour and 9/11. He also urged other nations to support the war, saying: “Israel’s fight is your fight.”
However, officials around the world are concerned about the estimated 200 hostages that remain in Hamas captivity, including two Americans and up to five Britons.
The US and UK have backed calls for a temporary “humanitarian pause” to allow time for hostages to be released by Hamas.
The United Nations has called for a full ceasefire, a move the US does not believe “is the right answer right now”, according to John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesman.
Israel has rejected calls for either strategy and said it will continue with its ground campaign.
On Monday, Hamas released a video of three female hostages, apparently under duress in captivity in Gaza. One of the women addressed Mr Netanyahu in the clip, telling him: “We know that there was supposed to be a ceasefire … You were supposed to free us all. You had to free us all.”
Raising her voice, she added: “Free us, free us now. Free their citizens. Free their prisoners. Free us. Free all of us.”
Mr Netanyahu dismissed the video as “cruel psychological propaganda by Hamas-Isis” and vowed to “bring all the abducted and missing people home”.
Separately, Tel Aviv said an Israeli-German woman captured by Hamas and paraded around Gaza had been confirmed as dead.
Shani Louk, a 22-year-old who was attending a music festival in southern Israel when Hamas launched its attack on Oct 7, was “confirmed murdered and dead”, Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, told Germany’s Bild newspaper. He suggested she had been beheaded.
Video footage from Gaza City confirmed the Israeli military had invaded the area with tanks, in what Rear-Adml Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s chief spokesman, described as an “expanded” operation involving “infantry, engineering corps, armoured tanks and artillery corps”.
Rear-Adml Hagari said there had been “direct contact” between Israeli troops and Hamas inside the Gaza Strip since a ground operation was launched.
Israeli intelligence analysts said the military’s approach had been to run a “cautious, step-by-step” push into Gaza, rather than an all-out assault.
Israeli forces have blocked the Salaheddin Road, the main route out of Gaza City to the south, in an attempt to prevent Hamas terrorists escaping towards the Rafah crossing, on the Gaza-Egyptian border. A second road from the city, along the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, is covered by Israeli naval forces.
Although the Israeli government has instructed civilians to leave the north of Gaza to make way for its ground invasion, tens of thousands of Palestinians are thought to have remained after Hamas blocked escape routes.
Mr Netanyahu said the terror group was using the remaining civilian population as human shields to protect its members from air attacks, and his strategy raises the possibility that the IDF is attempting a siege of Gaza City to avoid protracted fighting in the dense urban environment.
However, Mr Netanyahu is likely to come under increasing pressure from the international community to prioritise the rescue of the remaining hostages, many of whom are being kept in tunnels in the north.
Robert Halfon, a UK education minister, said that Hamas preventing any civilians from leaving Gaza City was in itself “a form of hostage-taking”.
Western leaders have launched a diplomatic offensive on Middle Eastern states that have more sway in the region in an attempt to contain the conflict from spreading more widely.
Israeli tanks have also been deployed on the Lebanese border in the north of the country, and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group, said it had shot down an Israeli drone.
James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, met his counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed in the United Arab Emirates, while Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, held calls with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar.
Mr Cleverly said the Government was working “extensively with the Egyptians, with the Israelis and others to try to have a humanitarian pause”.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, used a call with Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, to express his “serious concern at the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza”.
Downing Street said the two men had “stressed the importance of increasing the supplies of water, medicines and fuel reaching civilians”. (The Telegraph)
