On the morning of June 8, Israeli commandos launched a raid that rescued four hostages who had been taken during Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 and held inside Gaza for eight months. Before the operation, Israel had freed only three hostages by force. The successful rescue prompted celebrations inside Israel, but for Palestinians, it was one of the deadliest days of the war.
How an Israeli hostage rescue that left scores of Palestinians dead unfolded
A review of videos of the June 8 raid in Nuseirat shows the Israeli military employed heavy airstrikes on a dense residential area for nearly four hours
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The Gaza Health Ministry said that 274 Palestinians were killed during the operation. The Israeli military said that there were fewer than 100 casualties. Neither entity differentiated between civilians and combatants.
This Washington Post video investigation reconstructs the raid in which Israel sought to free hostages that Hamas had hidden in a crowded residential area. It shows how the Israeli military employed heavy airstrikes for nearly four hours, leaving women and children among the casualties. The Post identified at least 13 airstrikes across Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, and at least 17 destroyed structures in the vicinity of the raid.
The Post reviewed and mapped more than 100 videos and photos of the raid and its aftermath to conduct this investigation — most were posted online by local residents and journalists, some were shared directly with The Post and others were published by the Israel Defense Forces on their social media channels.
An Israeli general told The Post that the military called in the airstrikes to provide a corridor for the captives and their rescuers to evacuate.
The Israeli military did not respond to specific questions about civilian casualties identified by The Post, but a spokesperson said that Israeli forces “coordinated airstrikes and firepower due to the high amount of armed men and threats posed to the forces” and that only “military objectives” were targeted. They said the operation was proof that Hamas was “hiding behind civilians and holding hostages in the center of densely populated civilian areas.”
In response to a request for comment, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, asked: “Where can Hamas hide them when all of Gaza is only two and a half inches wide?”
Preparation for the raid had begun weeks before, when Israeli intelligence, with U.S. assistance, determined that hostages Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov were being held in Nuseirat. The Israeli military chose to launch the raid at midday, when they thought it would be least expected. But the timing also meant the streets were full of people.
The raid began at 11 a.m., when Israeli commandos assaulted the apartment building where Argamani was held and quickly freed her. But around 240 meters away, at the apartment holding the three men, Hamas guards fatally wounded one of the commandos, and a firefight ensued.
The Post’s investigation found that the rescue teams had used a civilian Mercedes van — one of several undercover vehicles used during the raid — to disguise their approach and climbed ladders to enter the apartment where the hostages were being held. The investigation also found that Israeli airstrikes began around ten minutes after commandos rushed the three hostages out, pummeling a market and residential area around the building.
At around noon, the evidence shows, the convoy evacuating the three male hostages broke down on the way out of Nuseirat.
The hostages and the commandos took shelter while a team of paratroopers drove in to rescue them. Videos showed the paratroopers breaking into a civilian home, where soldiers shouted at people to face the wall amid the sound of gunshots. Israeli troops shot two boys inside the home, including 12-year-old Yamen Miqdad, who later died of his wounds, his family told The Post.
The last Israeli airstrike identified by The Post occurred at around 3:15 p.m., more than an hour after all the hostages had been evacuated from Gaza.
The director of a nearby hospital told The Post that he recorded 450 injuries and 152 deaths that day. A spreadsheet tracking patient injuries at another nearby hospital, shared with The Post by a surgeon working with Doctors Without Borders, shows that patients ranged from 8 months to 59 years old. Most of their injuries were blast and crush wounds.
Press play on the video at the top of this page to watch the full investigation.
Louisa Loveluck, Lior Soroka, Heba Mahfouz, Joe Snell and Gabòr Friesen contributed to this report.
