Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed efforts to recover the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive, with US President Donald Trump during a visit to Washington this week amid hopes of reaching a ceasefire deal to end the nearly two-year-long war with Hamas.
These are some key moments of the hostage crisis:
2023
October 7 — Hamas-led gunmen stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 Israeli and foreign hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
October 20 — Hamas released two Israeli-American hostages.
October 23 — Hamas released two elderly Israeli hostages.
October 30 — Israeli forces rescued an Israeli soldier kidnapped on October 7.
November 21 — Israel and Hamas announced a truce, which would 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 resumed on December 1.
Talks on a new ceasefire took place over the following months, but did not succeed. Israel said it wanted only a temporary pause to free more hostages while Hamas said it would free them only as part of a permanent deal to end the war.
December 15 — Israeli forces mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The incident prompted some of the strongest criticism within Israel about the conduct of the war.
2024
Throughout the year, families of hostages led a campaign to pressure Israel's leaders to secure a deal for the hostages' release. They held street protests, appeared almost daily at parliament, met with world leaders and were frequently interviewed in the media.
February 12 — The Israeli military said it freed two hostages during a raid in Gaza's southern Rafah neighbourhood.
June 8 — Israeli forces rescued 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 recovered an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza.
August 31 — Israel discovered the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their deaths sparked mass protests in Israel demanding the government enter a hostage deal with Hamas. The six were shot dead by their captors 48 to 72 hours before being found by Israeli forces, according to Israeli health ministry estimates.
December 2 — US president-elect Donald Trump said there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released before his January 20 inauguration.
Trump repeated that threat as talks in Cairo and Doha on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal gained momentum.
2025
January 8 — The Israeli military said the body of Youssef Ziyadne, an Israeli Bedouin hostage, was found in a tunnel in Gaza. It later said the body of Ziyadne's son Hamza was found alongside him.
January 19 — A ceasefire took effect. During a six-week first phase, 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, were to be freed. In return, Israel would free almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails. In a subsequent phase, the two sides were to negotiate the exchange of remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Later that day, Hamas released three Israeli women and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners.
January 25 — Hamas released four Israeli women soldiers.
January 30 — Hamas freed two more Israeli women and an 80-year-old hostage, along with five Thai hostages in Gaza.
Israel released 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 handed over Israeli-American Keith Siegel and Israeli-French Ofer Calderon.
The group also freed Yarden Bibas, whose wife Shiri and children Ariel and Kfir were seized separately from their home near Gaza.
February 8 — Hamas released three Israeli hostages.
February 15 — As mediators helped avert a collapse of the ceasefire, Hamas released three hostages, including an Israeli-American.
February 20 — Hamas released the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were aged four years and nine months when kidnapped, along with an unidentified body Israel said was not their mother Shiri Bibas.
The group also handed over the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when abducted.
February 22 — Hamas released a fourth body, later identified by Israel as Shiri Bibas.
The group freed six hostages, two of whom were captured before October 2023.
Israel delayed the release of more than 600 prisoners and detainees in what was supposed to be the biggest release since the ceasefire deal took effect, citing violations by Hamas.
February 26 — After days of impasse, Egyptian mediators secured the handover of the bodies of the final four hostages in the deal's first phase. Israel freed about 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
March 1 — The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal expired after six weeks. A total of 59 hostages remained in Gaza, 24 of whom were considered to be alive.
May 12 — Hamas handed over Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, believed to be the last surviving US hostage held in Gaza.
June — Israeli forces recovered the bodies of seven hostages from Gaza in separate operations. Netanyahu said on June 5 the bodies of American-Israeli Gad Haggai and his wife Judi Weinstein-Haggai have been retrieved.
On June 11, he said the bodies of two more hostages were recovered from Gaza by the military and domestic intelligence agency. He announced on June 22 that another three, including that of soldier Shay Levinson, had been retrieved.
Reuters
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