Israel’s military on Friday released new footage of the rescue of two hostages, Fernando Simon Marman and Norberto Louis Har, Israeli nationals who also hold Argentine citizenship, from a house in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The operation was carried out on Feb. 12, 2024, amid intense gunbattles with their captors from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. Several of the gunmen were killed, along with other Palestinian civilians.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli towns and military sites along the Gaza border, and through the same month in 2025, three prisoner exchange deals were conducted between Israel and the Palestinian group.
The swaps took place during a two-year war in which Tel Aviv failed to recover additional hostages alive, although it retrieved numerous bodies.
Israel made several attempts to retrieve hostages by force. The army succeeded on three occasions, including the Rafah operation. In October 2023, it rescued soldier Ori Megidish from Al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City in a swift raid.
In June 2024, it recovered four hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza during a large-scale military operation. The military also recovered the bodies of other captives in separate operations deep inside the enclave.
Across the three agreements, Hamas returned a total of 252 Israeli and foreign hostages, dead and alive, according to Israeli figures. Four of them had been captured in 2014, including two soldiers later confirmed dead, and two civilians who had crossed into Gaza and were said to have suffered from mental illness; both were returned alive.
In exchange, Israel released more than 3,985 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.
They included 486 serving life sentences, 319 serving long-term sentences, among them 13 detained since before the Oslo Accords, 114 women, and 279 minors. Forty-one had previously been freed in the 2011 deal that secured the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and were later rearrested.
Another 22 had not yet been sentenced.
Of the total, 2,724 were detained in Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023.
Negotiations were repeatedly marred by disputes over exchange ratios. Hamas demanded higher numbers in return for Israeli soldiers, at one stage seeking 500 Palestinian prisoners per soldier.
Israeli and mediator pressure led to agreed formulas of 30 prisoners for each civilian hostage and 50 for each soldier. However, Israel continued to release only 30 in some cases.
The first swap followed a six-day temporary truce in late November 2023. Hamas and other Palestinian factions released 50 Israeli hostages classified as humanitarian cases, including women and children, in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, among them 169 boys and 71 women.
During the third week of the war, Hamas also freed four elderly Israeli women without compensation. Separately, 10 Thai workers and one Filipino were released alive during the deal through mediation efforts.
Efforts to extend the truce and secure further releases collapsed, and the war resumed with greater intensity for Gaza’s population.
After prolonged mediation, a three-phase ceasefire agreement was reached in mid-January 2025. The plan provided for the release of living civilian hostages in the first phase, soldiers in the second, and bodies in the third.
It stipulated the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences, for each civilian freed by Hamas, and 50 Palestinians for each soldier, including 30 serving life terms and 20 serving long sentences.
Hamas released 25 living hostages classified as humanitarian cases, including women, children, civilians over 50, and wounded or sick non-combatants. It also handed over the bodies of eight hostages and freed five Thai workers without compensation.
After those releases, Israel refused to free the agreed number of Palestinians in exchange for soldiers and insisted on classifying Arbel Yehoud, whom Palestinians described as a soldier, as a civilian. Her release had been scheduled for late January, and the dispute temporarily stalled the deal.
Mediators later intervened, and she was freed after Israel maintained she was a civilian, allowing displaced residents to return from southern to northern Gaza after Israel had linked their return to her release.
During that phase, five female soldiers abducted from the Nahal Oz site east of Gaza were freed and classified as humanitarian cases, with 30 Palestinians released in exchange for each. At the time, at least 13 Israeli soldiers remained in Hamas captivity, including the highest-ranking officer, Asaf Hamami, commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Division, who was later confirmed dead.
In that deal, Hamas surprised Israel with the number of hostages returned alive, despite Israeli assessments that some had been killed. They included Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who had entered Gaza in 2014 and were captured at the time. After years in captivity, both were confirmed alive upon their release.
Israel freed 1,778 Palestinians in that agreement, including 1,024 Gazans detained during the war. It also released 294 prisoners serving life or long-term sentences, among them 71 women.
On March 18 of the same year, Israel resumed its military campaign after talks to extend the truce failed.
On May 12, Hamas handed over hostage Edan Alexander, an Israeli soldier with US citizenship, as a goodwill gesture toward US President Donald Trump, in exchange for improvements to Gaza’s humanitarian conditions and progress in negotiations, without securing the release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel did not implement those understandings.
Following arduous negotiations, a comprehensive agreement to end the war was reached in October 2025. Israel recovered the remaining 20 living hostages in a single batch and retrieved the dead in stages after searches. The last was Israeli police officer Ran Gvili, whose body was found on Jan. 26 after weeks of efforts to recover it.
In return, Israel released 1,968 Palestinian prisoners, including 1,718 detained during the Gaza war. The group included 250 prisoners, among them 192 serving life sentences and 25 serving long terms. Most were deported outside Gaza to other countries.
