OPERATION DIAMOND
Heartstopping vids show Israeli special forces rescue hostages in Rafah raid & telling commanders ‘we have the diamonds’
Watch the footage above of the daring raid by the IDF
DRAMATIC drone footage shows the moment two Israeli hostages were rescued during an overnight blitz in Gaza.
Israeli troops swept into Rafah under the cover of night to extract the men and high-tech cameras caught the moment they were freed from their Hamas captors.
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When Israeli forces were able to break them out following a hail of gunfire and strikes between the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Hamas - they sent a coded message to their fellow troops.
"The diamonds are in our hands", one soldier said over the radio as drone footage showed them running down the blitzed streets in Rafah.
A shell-shocked Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Hare, 70, were bundled onto a helicopter and flown straight to a hospital in Israel after the daring rescue.
The mission, which IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari described as difficult and complex, appeared to have lots of moving parts in the clip shared by .
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Dozens of troops file down a residential street just as several buildings around them are hit by what appears to be airstrikes.
The birds-eye lens then shows IDF forces fleeing the area with the hostages, driving away quickly in two large armoured trucks.
Finally, they gather on the side of a dusty road surrounded by blitzed buildings as a helicopter swoops down to pick them up.
Once onboard the vehicles, IDF officials check on Marman and Hare, offering them water and blankets to keep them warm.
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They ask the pair: "Welcome back. How are you guys? How are you feeling?"
They reply: "Shocked, shocked, all right."
'Fired on from all sides': Inside daring Israeli mission in Hamas haven Rafah as 2 hostages seen reuniting with families
And as the men refused the blankets, they tell soldiers: "It's warm. It's warm in our hearts. What joy, what joy."
One IDF soldier says: "It's great to have you with us."
The entire operation was completed in just an hour - with the heart-stopping "We've got the diamonds" call coming at 1.50am.
It came only a minute after elite security and police forces blitzed the buildings surrounding the apartment where they were being held.
They also took out three Hamas terrorists who were guarding the men.
Yesterday heartwarming footage was released of the two men being reunited with their loved ones after more than four months apart.
The pair could be seen turning a corner in an Israeli hospital before tightly embracing their families and welling up.
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Marman's sister and Hare's partner, Clara Marman, was also taken hostage during Hamas' October 7 raid.
But Clara was released during the November ceasefire along with their other sister Gabriela and her daughter Mia.
When asked about the widespread criticism Israel has faced for unleashing fire in an area where almost 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering, IDF spokesperson Colonel Peter Lerner said the army's goal is to obliterate Hamas.
"We need to minimise the impact, operate in accordance to the laws of armed conflict.
"But at the end of the day achieve our goals of bringing home the hostages, every last one of them, and making sure that Hamas, who can't be trusted with power, never has the power of governing the Gaza strip again."
He said there have been no attempts to evacuate civilians from the area.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims at least 67 Palestinians were killed in the strikes overnight as part of Israel's rescue operation.
And the Israeli operation in Rafah - Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu's attempt to crush the "last bastion" of Hamas - has been met with widespread international backlash.
But the Israeli PM insisted that the "final terrorist holdout" is an essential part of the four-month-old battle against Hamas.
Dozens of people, including children, have already been killed as a result of strikes in the city.
Biden, Netanyahu's biggest ally since the war began, even urged caution over the move.
And Egypt has threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel entirely if ground troops are sent in.
When Hamas attacked Israel last year, they killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others.
Over 100 of those hostages were freed during the only brief ceasefire in November, and Israel says over 130 remain in captivity.
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Some of the remaining hostages are thought to be dead - either killed by Hamas or by Israeli strikes in Gaza.
Three were tragically killed by Israel's own soldiers after escaping Hamas terrorists in December.
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