In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis in a square outside the defence headquarters watched the hostage release on a giant screen. The crowd cheered, embraced and wept as three female hostages could be seen exiting a vehicle in Gaza surrounded by armed Hamas men.

The hostages got into vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross as the crowd of fighters chanted the name of the armed wing of Hamas.

Romi Gonen

Gonen, a dancer, was 23 when Hamas gunmen abducted her from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.

Gonen spent hours hiding from the gunmen with several friends before being shot in the hand.

She was on the phone with her family when they heard her say “I am going to die, today.” The last thing they heard the attackers saying, in Arabic, was “she’s alive, let’s take her.”

Her phone was later traced to a location in the Gaza Strip.

Doron Steinbrecher

Steinbrecher was a 30-year-old veterinary nurse who was taken to Gaza from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

A few hours after the attack began she phones her parents to say she was scared and that the gunmen had arrived at her building.

She then sent a voice message to her friends saying “They’ve arrived, they have me.”

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Emily Damari

Damari, 28, is a British-Israeli who was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

She grew up in London and is a fan of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer team.

According to her mother, she was shot in the hand, injured by shrapnel in her leg, blindfolded, bundled into the back of her own car, and driven to Gaza.