Video: Tears Of Joy, PM Netanyahu Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ Greet Freed Israeli Hostages As They Return Home

Laughters of relief as well as tears of joy greeted the four hostages – Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 – when they reunited with their families after Israeli forces rescued them after conducting a raid in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

Noa Argamani had become the face of the tragedy that befell the Israelis on October 7 when Hamas attacked localities and a music festival along the Israel-Gaza border.

She had appeared in a series of videos that captured the painful trajectory of those who have been or are still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. In the first, filmed by the attackers, she is being forced onto a motorbike by several men after being seized with her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, whose whereabouts are still unknown. “Don’t kill me!” she screamed with one arm outstretched, the other pinned down.

In another video released by Hamas in mid-January, she appeared gaunt and spoke — almost certainly under duress — of other hostages being killed in airstrikes months into Israel’s massive offensive.

The scenes were different on Saturday when videos of her being united with her father Yaakov Argamani. A thankful Yaakov recited prayers and thanked the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) unit for returning his daughter to her.

Social media and news outlets also took note that freed hostage Noa Argamani could now meet her terminally-ill mother. Noa rushed to the hospital shortly after she was released to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center where her mother, Liora, was being treated for terminal brain cancer.

Back in October, shortly after her daughter was abducted from a music festival turned killing field in southern Israel, Liora, sitting in a wheelchair, was asked in an interview with a local television station how she imagined their reunion.

“At least to be able to hug her,” Liora answered.

Argamani’s father, Yaakov, first met her after a military helicopter carried her back to Israel.

“Today is my birthday, and a gift like this I never believed I would get,” he said as medical staff at Ichilov Hospital sang happy birthday.

Similar scenes also greeted Andrey Kozlov after he was brought back to Israel. The IDF released a video where being aided in walking, then sitting and was later seen embracing Almog Meir Jan, who was also rescued along with him.

Russian-Israeli Andrey Kozlov was a security guard at the music festival. During the attack he was in touch with his father and friends, saying he had nowhere to hide.

His family was informed three weeks later that he had been taken hostage.

Almog Meir Jan, 22, from a small town near Tel Aviv, had finished his army service three months earlier, according to the Times of Israel, an English-language Israeli website. A forum set up by families of the hostages said he was supposed to start a job at a tech company the day after the attack.

He left a voice message just before 8:00 am on October 7, on the cellphone of his mother Orit Meir.

“Mum, rockets are (falling) everywhere. I don’t know what is going on,” he said. “Mum, I love you.”

Meir Jan’s friends cheered and jumped with excitement, calling his name as they passed the phone around. Several friends blew kisses and shouted their love for him, while others were seen wiping tears from their eyes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Kozlov and also said that he celebrated Yaakov Argamani’s birthday with him. A video clip released by his office showed him singing ‘happy birthday’ along with Noa’s relatives.

“This is a day of unprecedented emotion for all citizens of Israel and many around the world, and for me personally. And I want to repeat and make clear that we will return everyone,” he said.

Shlomi Ziv’s family also tearfully reunited with him at Ramat Gan’s Sheba Medical Center, where the hostages were first brought to after their rescue. “My heart, you’re a hero,” his wife Miran said. Ziv asked the whereabouts of his friend Aviv Eliyahu, who was the security manager of the event and murdered on October 7, when speaking to his wife over a video call where both teared up.

Ziv’s sister, Revital Nasi, made a statement from the hospital directed at Arnon Zmora and his family. Zmora was a counter-terrorism official who was part of the rescue operation and was killed during the operation.

“We are so sorry and just want to say thank you,” Nasi said, as she wept.

On Saturday, after eight months of captivity, Israeli forces rescued Argamani and three men who had all been kidnapped from the Tribe of Nova music festival, where Hamas and other militants killed over 350 people in the worst massacre in Israel’s history.

Israelis celebrated the release, cheering on beaches and gathering outside the hospital where the former captives underwent medical checks.

Footage widely shared on social media showed beachgoers in Israel’s coastal commercial hub of Tel Aviv erupting into cheers after a lifeguard announced the release of the four hostages over a loudspeaker.

The four were among 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, now in its ninth month.

Netanyahu in a statement vowed to continue the fighting until all hostages are freed. The operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Israeli aircraft hummed overhead as the bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda’s numbers couldn’t immediately be confirmed.

“The horrific massacre committed today by Netanyahu and his fascist government against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which led to slaughter of 210 and more than 400 wounded so far — under the pretext of liberating those detained by the resistance — confirms what the resistance has said repeatedly: that Netanyahu doesn’t plan to reach an agreement to stop the war and free the captured Israelis peacefully,” said Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official now based in Lebanon.