More On How They Did It in Nuseirat: ‘Fluent Arabic with a Perfect Gazan Accent’

Now that the four hostages recently rescued by the Israelis from their imprisonment in the homes of “innocent civilians” in the Nuseirat refugee camp are safely back home with their ecstatic families, the detailed story of how their rescues were planned and executed can be told. You can find more about the rescues here: “The inside story of Israel’s dramatic Gaza hostage rescue,” by Elon Perry, The JC,  June 13, 2024:

On 12 May, Israel received intelligence about the location of four hostages in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the Gaza Strip. From that day on, every branch of Israeli intelligence was focused on the area 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to locate the exact location. A team of undercover ‘Mista’arvim’ (units that assimilate into local populations to gather intelligence) were sent there, mainly in the local market of Nuseirat….

After 19 days of intensive cooperative intelligence gathering work, the combined units managed to compile solid and accurate information about the location of the Israeli hostages. It was discovered that the hostages were being held in two separate buildings in the same area. Noa Argamani was held in the first floor of one and three other hostages were in another building, 800 metres away, on the third floor….

In order to finally verify the information and to prepare the ground for the operation, another team of undercover soldiers (including several women dressed in hijabs and long black dresses) was sent into the Nuseirat refugee camp. Pretending to be two Gazan families looking for a large house in Nuseirat, they arrived in two cheap-looking old cars loaded with domestic items characteristic of those families displaced in the Strip, such as mattresses and clothing identical to those of the locals….

A few days later, after settling into the house and getting to know the area, including shopping at the local market, and realising that they did not arouse suspicion, the undercovers began their mission: verifying the location where the hostages were held. They split into two teams. One team consisted of two commandos, a man dressed as a typical Gazan local and a woman dressed in a long black dress and hijab. They began marching down the street towards the ‘Al-Auda’ medical center where, in a nearby residential building 200 metres from the hospital, Noa Argamani was held. The undercovers walked with complete confidence as if they were walking down a street in Tel Aviv. To add to their authenticity, they stopped from time to time at stalls along the sides of the street, showing interest in the products while complaining about the difficult situation in Gaza. This was done in fluent Arabic with a perfect Gazan accent. Behind them, walked four more undercover men, armed to give backup in case a ‘Fauda-like’ situation occurred (Fauda in Arabic means unexpected chaos)….

Hamas claims that during the rescue operation in the crowded streets of the refugee camp, 274 Palestinians were killed. However, the IDF says that 104 Palestinians were killed or wounded – all of whom were Hamas terrorists or armed civilians who collaborated with the terrorist organisation….

Whose figures do you believe? Not those put out by Hamas. Remember how the terror group insisted that “500 civilians” had been killed by the IDF at the “massacre at Jenin”? But in the end, it turned out that only 50 Palestinians had been killed, at least 45 of them members of the terror group? And remember, too, Hamas’ similar claim, about “500 civilians at the Al-Ahli hospital who were supposedly killed in an Israeli airstrike? It turned out that it was not an Israeli airstrike, but a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza toward Israel, that misfired, and fell short in Gaza, not on the hospital itself but on the parking lot next to the hospital. And it was not 500 civilians who were killed at the Al-Ahli Hospital’s parking lot, but only 50, and we have no proof as to how many of these were civilians. Israel has as long a record of telling the truth as Hamas has of lying.

The IDF managed to conduct intelligence operations that allowed them to pinpoint precisely both the apartment in which Noa Argamani was held, and the other apartment, belonging to the “innocent civilians” Dr. Ahmed Al-Jamal and his son Abdullah al-Jamal, where the three male hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were being held. The first team consisted of an Israeli man and women, disguised in Arab dress, the woman dressed entirely in black and wearing a hijab, with both of them “speaking Arabic with a perfect Gazan accent,” who passed themselves off as Arabs displaced from Rafah “where the Israelis were attacking.” They took their time going through the open market, stopping at various stalls to discuss what was for sale. They explained to a local Arab that, having fled from Rafah, they were seeking an apartment in Nuseirat; they were willing to pay three times the going rate, and they managed to rent one on the same street where Noa Argamani was being held, so as to keep that apartment under close observation.

A second group consisted of four Arab (but actually Israeli Jewish) women, dressed in long back dresses and hijabs. They split into pairs, because young women Muslim in Gaza do not walk outside alone, as they sauntered down the streets of Nuseirat, looking at the goods in the open-air stalls, haggling over prices. One of the women was disguised to look pregnant; all four carried plastic bags full of food products and vegetables, as Arab shoppers would.. They too, spoke Arabic with a perfect Gazan accent. They were keeping under close surveillance the apartment where the three male hostages were being held.

The attacks were timed to take place simultaneously, because if the attack on one of the apartments where hostages were being held had started earlier, the news of that attack could endanger the lives of the hostages at the second apartment. The rescue of Noa Argamani went off without a hitch; it took a total of six minutes for the Israelis to eliminate all of her guards, and to hustle her off to a waiting helicopter. At the other apartment, there were more than 30 heavily armed guards inside the apartment, who met the Israelis storming the site with a withering fire, both from machine guns and grenades and rocket-propelled grenades, but somehow the 15 or so outnumbered Israelis managed to kill all 30, while suffering a single loss of their own, the Yamam commander Arnon Zamora. And then, as they tried to make their way out with the three hostages, they were again subjected to a gigantic barrage, and again they managed both to fire on their attackers and to call down airstrikes on them. The end result of this terrific firefight was that one Israeli died, while — according to the Israelis — 104 members of Hamas and “civilians” collaborating with Hamas, like the Al-Jamals, father and son, were killed. A spectacular achievement.