Israel has rescued or returned 199 hostages held by Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attacks in the country’s south, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday.
One hundred forty-eight captives returned alive, while Jerusalem retrieved the bodies of 51 slain hostages, according to the official data.
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups abducted 251 Israelis and foreign nationals during the Oct. 7 massacre. The figure released by the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday include IDF Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, who was killed in action in Gaza in 2014 and whose body was recovered by the military in January, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who entered the Strip on their own accord and were freed in a hostage deal on Feb. 22.
Following the operation to retrieve the bodies of Judy Weinstein-Haggai and Gadi Haggai on Thursday, 55 living and slain hostages taken on Oct. 7 remain in terrorist captivity after 608 days, as well as the body of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed in action in 2014.
“The State of Israel has a moral and ethical obligation to do everything possible to return all the hostages, until the last one has returned,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The Haggais, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were murdered on Oct. 7 and their bodies were taken to Gaza. Israel’s military confirmed the deaths of the couple in December.
Speaking at the inauguration of Assuta Hospital Beersheva on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Since the start of the war, we have brought home 199 hostages, including 48 in special operations.”
“We are determined to bring them all back—without exception, the living and the fallen alike,” he declared.
“Every time I visit Beersheva, I feel a breeze of national realization and Zionist endeavor, a kind of spirit that rises from the desert. I truly feel it. I’m always moved by it. And today, of course, it happens again—in the midst of a war of national revival, in which we are determined to defeat our enemies, to bring back all our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” the prime minister said.
“The rehabilitation and return of all the residents of the Gaza Envelope [border region] and all our hostages—this will be a picture of victory, just as Assuta Beersheva is a picture of victory—for the Negev and for the entire State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.