Inside operation to bring Israel’s hostages home from Gaza

It begins with a phone call with a location.

Once the details are received, a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sets off in vehicles marked with the humanitarian organisation’s logo to pick up the hostages in Gaza.

Israeli military and medical personnel are also assembled at several different locations, waiting to bring them home.

​​The hostage releases, watched around the world, come after months of tense negotiations aimed at ending a war that began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas fighters killed some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251 others.

In the 15 months that followed, more than 47,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and many more lost their homes in Israeli bombardments.

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that began on 19 January, a total of 33 Israeli hostages are due to be released and returned to their families during the first phase, lasting six weeks.

In exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are being freed.

If anything goes wrong, it risks the hostages remaining in captivity, and reigniting the war.

“This is more than just a drive,” says ICRC spokesperson Sarah Davies.

“These operations may seem simple, but in fact they are very complex and require rigorous security measures to minimise the risks to those involved.”

The ICRC, which acts as a neutral intermediary in the handover, assembles a team of specialists, some of whom have been involved in similar operations in the past – though this is more challenging than most.

There are some details that the group cannot speak about publicly because of concerns that it could compromise the security of the operation.

Ms Davies says planning is crucial to ensuring that the exchange runs smoothly. They have mapped out alternative routes to get to different locations in Gaza, knowing that the “safest route can change” at any time.

Among their biggest concerns are the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance, destroyed and damaged infrastructure, and large crowds with “heightened emotions”.

“Our teams prepare and plan for as many scenarios as possible,” she says.

“The most important thing for us is to be able to return any person entrusted to our care safely back to their homes.”

But it is impossible to plan for everything.

“From previous experience, here and in other places around the world, we know that the logistics and final details can change at any time, even – and particularly – during operations themselves,” says Ms Davies.

Medical staff and so-called weapons contamination specialists, trained in identifying explosive remnants of war, travel with the teams.

During the operations, ICRC representatives also maintain regular contact with both Israeli officials and Hamas, as well as mediators.

In the previous releases, Hamas has circulated the names of the released hostages in advance on its Telegram channels, without revealing exactly where the handovers will happen.

The first public signs of the locations have been the presence of armed and masked members of Hamas’s military wing.

“I found out from a kiosk guy that there was something happening at the junction and that al-Qassam fighters were having a parade,” a local journalist says of the first release in Gaza City earlier this month.

Crowds started gathering to watch as the fighters assembled in formation, and word began to spread that the first three hostages released under the ceasefire deal would appear there.

“When people realised this would be the place where they would hand over the Israeli hostages, people started chanting [for al-Qassam and senior Hamas figures],” he says. “They started shouting ‘God is greatest’ – that showed how joyful they were.”

The journalist was also there for the second release – at a different location in Gaza City – the following week, which he describes as being “more organised”.

The fighters set up a small stage area with a desk and chairs, and stood in formation to separate the hostages from the crowds.

White cars with blacked out windows were used to bring the hostages – four women soldiers – to the area.

The young women were filmed thanking their captors and being handed gift bags in a video published by Hamas’ military wing.

They were brought on to the stage and waved at the cheering crowd, before being handed over to the care of the ICRC.

Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou said in a later statement that the “scenes and details” of the staged handover “tell the story of resistance creativity, heroism, and reinforce a model of pride and dignity”.

Ms Davies says there are some aspects of the handover that are “out of our control”.

“At all times, ICRC staff do their utmost to protect the dignity of those being released, but… it is important that people recognise the limitations of what we can do,” she says.

“Our priority remains the safe and successful release and transfer of those in our care.”

The hostages are transferred to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the outskirts of Gaza.

Col Dr Avi Banov, deputy chief of the Israel Defense Forces medical corps, says: “We’re prepared through the outskirts of Gaza and other areas to receive the hostages.

“We always prepare because Hamas does not tell us, ‘OK, we’re going to free them in this area or in that area’.”

Across the border, reception points have been set up to receive them.

On site are military and medical personnel, social workers and the hostages’ families.

A former Israeli army medic who was involved in the first hostage return operation during the November 2023 ceasefire remembers waiting next to an ambulance at a base near the border. His was one of several teams on standby in case one of the hostages had a medical emergency and says there were strict instructions about how to interact with those who returned.

He recalls: “We were told if you evacuate them, don’t ask them questions, don’t do anything inappropriate, just be quiet and then if the hostages asks you something or want something, of course you’re going to answer and give it to them. But be low key.”

He says the atmosphere at the base was one of excitement and nerves. “It was a very important mission,” he says.

Col Dr Banov says the return begins with an introduction between the hostages and medical staff.

The returned hostages are assigned a physician, a nurse and a social worker who “accompany them all the way through” to them being taken to hospital.

Families are advised to give the hostages “a little bit of time” with the medical teams before the reunion to allow them to “breathe and understand that [they’re] in a safe place again”.

“We start with vitamins, something small to eat and drink, and then the families,” Col Dr Banov says.

As part of a “grounding” process, he says, efforts are made to give the released hostages agency to make their own decisions, with questions like: “Would you like to take a shower before or after you meet your parents?”

Of the first seven hostages to be released, he says most had “some sort of shrapnel injuries” as well as suffering from malnutrition and metabolic problems.

“They’re not good physically, mentally it’s a very complicated issue,” he says.

In the coming weeks, he notes, the bodies of dead hostages will also arrive, with plans in place to transfer them to a forensic laboratory before funerals in Israel.

After receiving initial treatment at the reception point, the surviving hostages are transferred in a “specially adapted” helicopter to a hospital elsewhere in the country.

Col Dr Banov says: “We tell them… we will take a helicopter back home. And then, if you’re willing to, we’re going to start talking about what you have been through.”

It is there that the proper recovery process begins.