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Key moments involving Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on May 30, 2025
5 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on May 30, 2025
5 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Key moments in the Israeli hostages crisis with Hamas include captures, releases, military rescues, and truce negotiations.
(Reuters) -A U.S. plan for Gaza has revived hopes for securing the release of the remaining 58 hostages Hamas holds in Gaza, 21 of whom are still believed to be alive. Following are some key moments of the hostage crisis:
2023
October 7 - Hamas-led gunmen storm into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 Israeli and foreign hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
October 20 - Hamas releases two Israeli-American hostages.
October 23 - Hamas releases two elderly Israeli hostages.
October 30 - Israeli forces rescue an Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped on Oct. 7.
November 21 - Israel and Hamas announce a truce, which will last seven days, to exchange hostages held in Gaza for Palestinians jailed in Israel, and let in more aid.
Around half the hostages - women, children and foreigners - are released in return for 240 Palestinian women and teenage prisoners and detainees, before war resumes on December 1.
Talks on a new ceasefire take place over the following months, but do not succeed. Israel says it wants only a temporary pause to free more hostages; Hamas says it will free them only as part of a permanent deal to end the war.
December 15 - Israeli forces mistakenly kill three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The incident prompts some of the strongest criticism within Israel of the conduct of the war.
2024
Throughout the year, families of hostages lead a campaign to pressure Israel's leaders to secure a deal for the hostages' release. They hold street protests, appear almost daily at parliament, meet with world leaders and are frequently interviewed in the media.
February 12 - The Israeli military says it frees two hostages during a raid in Gaza's southern Rafah neighbourhood.
June 8 - Israeli forces rescue four hostages held by Hamas in a raid on a residential neighbourhood in Nuseirat, Gaza, in one of the single deadliest Israeli assaults of the war.
August 27 - Israeli special forces recover an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza.
August 31 - Israel discovers the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their deaths spark mass protests in Israel demanding the government enter a hostage deal with Hamas. The six were shot dead by their captors 48-72 hours before being found by Israeli forces, according to Israeli health ministry estimates.
December 2 - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says there will be "hell to pay" in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip are not released before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump repeats that threat as talks in Cairo and Doha on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal gain momentum.
2025
January 8 - The Israeli military says the body of Youssef Ziyadne, an Israeli Bedouin hostage, has been found in a tunnel in Gaza. It later says the body of Ziyadne's son Hamza was found alongside him.
January 19 - A ceasefire takes effect. In a six-week first phase 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, are to be freed. In return, Israel will free almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails. In a subsequent phase, the two sides are to negotiate the exchange of remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Later that day, Hamas releases three Israeli women and Israel releases 90 Palestinian prisoners.
January 25 - Hamas releases four Israeli women soldiers.
January 30 - Hamas frees two more Israeli women and an 80-year-old hostage, along with five Thai hostages in Gaza.
Israel releases 110 Palestinian prisoners in return, after delaying the process in anger at the swarming crowds at one of the hostage handover points.
February 1 - Hamas hands over Israeli-American Keith Siegel and Israeli-French Ofer Calderon.
The group also frees Yarden Bibas, whose wife Shiri and children Ariel and Kfir were seized separately from their home near Gaza.
February 8 - Hamas releases three Israeli hostages.
February 15 - As mediators help avert a collapse of the ceasefire, Hamas releases three hostages including an Israeli American.
February 20 - Hamas releases the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were aged 4 years and 9 months when kidnapped, along with an unidentified body that Israel said was not of their mother Shiri Bibas.
The group also hands over the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when abducted.
February 22 - Hamas releases a fourth body, later identified by Israel as Shiri Bibas.
The group frees six hostages, two of whom were captured before October 2023.
Israel delays the release of more than 600 prisoners and detainees, in what was supposed to be biggest release since the ceasefire deal took effect, citing violations by Hamas.
February 26 - After days of impasse, Egyptian mediators secure the handover of the bodies of the final four hostages in the deal's first phase.
Israel frees about 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
March 1 - The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal expires after six weeks. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are considered to be alive.
May 12 - Hamas hands over Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, believed to be the last surviving U.S. hostage held in Gaza.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nayera Abdallah in DubaiEditing by William Maclean and Frances Kerry)
Hamas holds 58 hostages in Gaza, with 21 believed to be alive.
On October 7, Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages.
The truce allowed for the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for 240 Palestinian prisoners, but fighting resumed on December 1.
On February 12, the Israeli military announced the rescue of two hostages during a raid in Gaza's southern Rafah neighborhood.
On May 12, Hamas handed over Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, believed to be the last surviving U.S. hostage held in Gaza.
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