The four detainees rescued from Gaza by the Israeli army on Saturday included Noa Arghamani, 25, who was abducted by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023.

After spending eight months in militant custody, she was reunited safely with her father today after the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) attacked a “terrorist structure” in central Gaza.

Israel released photos of a smiling Argamani meeting and hugging her father, Yaakov Argamani. The army said she had spoken by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

Arghamani was captured in several videos of the Hamas attack, and one of the widely shared videos showed two Hamas men carrying her away on a bike while she pleaded for help. Her boyfriend was also taken away by the militants.

In the video, he can be heard screaming, “Don’t kill me!”

In January this year, Hamas released a video of Arghamani along with two other hostages, in which they could be heard talking about hostages being killed in Israeli air strikes.

Noa’s mother, Liora Argamani, has stage 4 brain cancer, and has repeatedly expressed her desire to see her daughter again. In a video message, with a family photo including Noa in the background, the mother can be seen pleading with no one to let her daughter go.

“I want to see him one more time. I want to talk to him one more time. I don’t have much time left in this world,” Leora said in the video.

The other three hostages rescued were Almog Meir Jan, 21, a resident of Tel Aviv, Andre Kozlov, 27, who worked as a security guard at the festival, and Shlomi Ziv, a 40-year-old farmer from northern Israel.

Hamas attacks on 7 October killed around 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages. Israel declared war on Hamas following this action and at least 36,801 Palestinians have been killed in subsequent attacks in Gaza. At least 116 hostages are now believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.