The pair, from Chicago, were visiting Judith’s mother in Kibbutz Nahal Oz when Hamas invaded on Oct. 7; the two have arrived in Israel and are on their way to meet their family.
Hamas on Friday night released two hostages — Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie — who were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz the terror group’s October 7 assault on Israel.
It was the first release out of at least 203 hostages held by Hamas since its infiltration and massacre of Israeli southern communities that started the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The two, who have US citizenship, were handed over to the Red Cross, which then handed them over to Israel. The exact mechanism of the transfer was not immediately clear. Hamas cited “for humanitarian reasons.”
The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Gal Hirsch, recently appointed as coordinator of hostages and missing persons, joined military forces that met the two at the border. From there they were taken to a military base in the country’s center, where they were to be reunited with family members.
The step was widely viewed in Israel as a public relations stunt, with Hamas keenly interested in somewhat rehabilitating its image since its people conducted brutal massacres of Israeli civilians in the group’s unprecedented attack on southern communities.
Top American officials including US President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have said Hamas’s atrocities were as bad as if not worse than those carried out by the jihadist Islamic State group, which conquered and held large swaths of Syrian and Iraq territory between 2014-2017.
“Hamas is presenting itself to the world at this hour as one that releases hostages for humanitarian reasons, but in reality, we are talking about a murderous terror group, which at this hour is holding babies, children, women, and elderly captive,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a short statement.
Hagari said the IDF was continuing its efforts to return hostages to Israel while still preparing for the “next stages of the fighting,” which is expected to include a major ground offensive. “The fighting is likely to last many more weeks,” he added.
Qatar led the negotiations with Hamas that led to the release, a senior diplomatic source told The Times of Israel, adding that the United States also contributed to the effort.
The step followed efforts by Qatar taken to “prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration [against the group] are false and baseless,” a Hamas spokesperson said.
CNN reported that one reason for the release was Judith Raanan’s health.
Israeli officials cited by several Hebrew media outlets stressed that the Hamas decision was made unilaterally and that Jerusalem didn’t offer anything in exchange.
At the same time, unconfirmed media reports tied the release to the expected entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing.
The White House issued a statement from Biden in which he said he was “overjoyed” that the two “will soon be reunited with their family, who has been wracked with fear.”
He thanked “the government of Qatar and the government of Israel for their partnership in this work.”
“Jill and I have been holding close in our hearts all the families of unaccounted-for Americans,” he continued. “And, as I told those families when I spoke with them last week, we will not stop until we get their loved ones home. As president, I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans held hostage around the world.”
Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie, from the Chicago area, had traveled to Israel to celebrate the 85th birthday of Judith’s mother at Kibbutz Nahal Oz as well as the Jewish holiday season.
The pair had sent their community updates as the trip progressed and were enjoying “this really special mom and daughter time together” before disappearing after Hamas launched its October 7 assault, their rabbi Meir Hecht said earlier this month.
“We received this terrible news that Judith and her daughter Natalie are missing and apparently were most likely taken as hostages to Gaza,” Hecht said. “It feels like our community has been violated.”
They had been celebrating Simchat Torah, a festive Jewish holiday that marks the conclusion of the annual reading of the Torah. They were in Nahal Oz, a kibbutz in Israel about a mile (1.61 kilometers) from the Gaza border.
As the horror of the attack unfolded, the two sent frantic messages to loved ones from a sheltered room describing sounds of shooting and violence around them before falling silent.
Judith had spent much of her early life in Israel before moving to the US, her family told The New York Times. She is a painter devoted to Jewish religious and Israeli themes.
