There were tears of joy and tight embraces as freed Israeli hostages Fernando Simon Marman, 61, and Louis Har, 70, reunited with their families after four months in captivity and a daring overnight rescue operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
As Breitbart News reported, the IDF entered Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, overnight and rescued the two hostages in an intense battle with Hamas terrorists.
The freed hostages were taken to Israel via helicopter, where they were evaluated at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv.
The IDF released additional photographs of the happy reunions:
In addition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the IDF special forces units responsible for the rescue:
There are as many as 134 Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Several dozen are already thought to be dead.
Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that there would likely be further operations to rescue hostages, though he also cautioned that the number of hostages who could be rescued in that manner would likely be few, and that diplomacy was preferable.
However, Hamas has insisted on ending the war before it releases more Israeli hostages — a demand to which it knows Israel cannot agree, leading to speculation that Hamas is buying time in the hope the U.S. will stop Israel from continuing to fight.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
