Israel Prepares to Receive Hostages Held in Gaza for Over a Year

The Israeli authorities are making preparations to welcome home dozens of hostages held incommunicado by Hamas for over a year in Gaza, without knowing whether they will return starved, traumatized or dead.

Thirty-three hostages are supposed to be freed in the first phase of the Gaza cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in the first such major release since a weeklong cease-fire seven weeks into the war. Some families have caught glimpses of their loved ones in Hamas-directed hostage videos. But it is far from clear in what condition the captives will return.

At Israeli hospitals, health officials have been preparing isolated areas where the hostages can begin recuperating in privacy. Israel’s Health Ministry has drafted an extensive protocol for their psychological and physical treatment. There are particular concerns that they may be severely malnourished.

“The ones who were freed back then were already poorly nourished,” Hagar Mizrahi, a senior Israeli health ministry official, said of the hostages freed during the 2023 truce. “Imagine their situation now, after an additional 400 days. We are extremely worried about this.”

After Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and capturing about 250 others, about 105 Israeli and foreign hostages were freed in the weeklong truce in November that year. A few were later released in Israeli military operations, and Israeli soldiers recovered the bodies of dozens of others.

But around 98 hostages remained in Gaza, dozens of whom presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.

Of the women, older men and other hostages returning under the first phase of this cease-fire deal, many are believed to have been held in the militant group’s warren of tunnels in Gaza, conditions likely to leave physical and psychological scars.