Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, were kidnapped from a kibbutz near the Gaza border during the Oct. 7 attacks.
Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, were released by Hamas on Friday.
By Liam Stack and Ronen Bergman | The New York Times
Two Americans held captive in Gaza by Hamas, a woman and her teenage daughter, were released on Friday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage along with 200 others during terrorist raids in southern Israel that ignited a war, leaving thousands of people dead.
Hamas said it was freeing Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, for “humanitarian reasons,” but did not elaborate. Their releases came after negotiations involving officials in Qatar, who served as mediators between the United States and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip.
The women, dual American-Israeli citizens who live in Illinois, had been kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed some 1,400 people, and taken back to the Gaza Strip. They were released to the International Committee of the Red Cross and then handed over to the Israel Defense Forces, who took them to be reunited with family at an Israeli military base, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In this photo provided by the government of Israel, Judith Raanan, right, and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, are escorted by Israeli soldiers and Gal Hirsch, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s special coordinator for returning the hostages. They returned to Israel on Friday.Credit...Government of Israel, via Associated Press
Hamas still holds 10 other Americans hostage, according to the State Department, and President Biden vowed on Friday to make every effort to reunite their families.
“We will not stop until we get their loved ones home,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans held hostage around the world.” He asked the public to respect the privacy of the Raanans “as they recover and heal.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference on Friday that “every hostage needs to be released and needs to be released now,” unconditionally.
Mr. Blinken said he could not discuss details of the negotiations to free Judith and Natalie Raanan. According to someone familiar with the negotiations, Hamas asked for nothing in return for their release.
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