CNN
 — 

Israel’s operation to rescue four hostages took weeks of preparation and involved hundreds of personnel, its military said. But the mission began with a trail of destruction in central Gaza and ended in carnage, according to local authorities.

Staff from Israel’s military, the domestic intelligence service, and a police special unit raided two buildings on Saturday, 200 meters (650 feet) apart, in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where intelligence reports said the hostages were being held.

They rescued four hostages – Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv – eight months after they were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7. An Israeli policeman who was part of the special counter-terrorism unit was killed in the operation.

Israel heavily bombarded central Gaza as it carried out the operation, killing more than 200 Palestinians and wounding many others, according to Gaza hospital officials. CNN has no way of verifying casualty numbers reported by Palestinian officials in Gaza. Medical records in the war-torn enclave do not differentiate between civilians and militants killed.

“Israeli forces have been preparing for this rescue mission for weeks. They underwent intensive training,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a press briefing.

The special operation was weeks in the making, and Israeli forces prepared by building models of the apartments the hostages were being held in to train in, Hagari said.

Previous attempts to launch such a raid had been called off at the last minute “more than three or four times,” due to unfavorable conditions.

When the moment arrived, the IDF launched pre-planned strikes in Gaza on what it called militant infrastructure, as the operation began Saturday daytime, unusual timing which officials hoped would give them the “element of surprise.”

“While under fire, under fire inside the buildings, under fire on the way out from Gaza, our forces rescued our hostages,” Hagari said.

But on the ground in Gaza, Palestinians described scenes of carnage following the strikes that led up to the rescue. Nidal Abdo was shopping in Nuseirat on Saturday when he saw what he described as a “crazy bombardment.”

“[It was] something we never witnessed before, maybe 150 rockets fell in less than 10 minutes, while we were running away more fell on the market,” he said. “There are children torn apart and scattered in the streets, they wiped out Nuseirat, it is hell on earth.”

Hostage rescues are rare: this is only the third such successful operation. IDF Corporal Ori Megidish was rescued in October last year from northern Gaza. In another operation on February 12 this year, Fernando Marman and Louis Har were rescued from southern Rafah.

Since November, intensive negotiations over a ceasefire and a deal to swap hostages for Palestinian prisoners have landed in a stalemate. Israel last month pressed ahead with its ground operation in central Rafah despite international condemnation for its escalation in the southern Gaza city where some 1.3 million Palestinians were taking shelter before Israel began its operation there.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday instructed the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the United Nations to request an emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss what it called “a gruesome massacre” by Israel in Nuseirat.

“The Israeli assault on the Nuseirat camp has claimed the lives of hundreds of martyrs and left numerous others wounded. President Abbas is engaged in intensive communications with relevant Arab and international parties to convene this urgent session of the UN Security Council,” a statement posted to X by the Palestinian permanent observer mission to the UN said.