Timeline of hostages: Rescues, releases, ceasefire talks

Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal on Monday, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

Ninety-eight hostages remain in Gaza. They include Israelis and foreigners, civilians and soldiers, men, women, two children, and the elderly. Around half of them are believed to be alive.

Here are some of the main moments:

2023

Oct. 7 – Hamas terrorists storm into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 Israeli and foreign hostages

Oct. 20: Hamas releases two Israeli-American hostages.

Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie Shoshana Raanan, US citizens who were taken as hostages by Palestinian Hamas militants, walk while holding hands with Brig.-Gen. (Ret.) Gal Hirsch, Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and Missing, after they were released by the militants. (credit: Government of Israel/Handout via REUTERS)

Oct. 23: Hamas releases two elderly Israeli hostages.

Oct. 30 – The IDF rescues an Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped on Oct. 7.

Nov. 21: Israel and Hamas announce a truce, which will last seven days, to exchange hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel and let in more aid.

Fifty hostages – women, children, and foreigners – are released in return for 240 Palestinian women and teenage prisoners and terrorists before war resumes on Dec. 1.

Talks on a new ceasefire take place over the following months, but have yet to bear fruit. Israel says it wants only a temporary pause to free more hostages; Hamas says it will free them only as part of a permanent deal to end the war.

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Dec. 15: IDF mistakenly kills three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The incident prompts some of the strongest criticism within Israel of the conduct of the war.

2024

Throughout the year, families of hostages lead a campaign to pressure Israel’s leaders to secure a deal for their loved ones’ release. They hold street protests, appear almost daily at parliament, meet with world leaders and are frequently interviewed in the media.

Feb. 12 – The IDF says it frees two hostages during a raid by special forces in Gaza’s southern Rafah neighborhood.

June 8 – The IDF rescues four hostages held by Hamas in a raid in Nuseirat, Gaza.

Andrei Kozlov (left) and Alomg Meir (right) after being rescued by Israeli special forces, June 8, 2024. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)

Aug. 27 – Israeli special forces recover an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza in “a complex rescue operation,” the IDF says.

Aug. 31 – Israel discovers the bodies of six slain hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their deaths spark mass protests in Israel, demanding the government enter a hostage deal with Hamas. The six were shot dead by their captors 48-72 hours before being found by the IDF, according to health ministry estimates.

Dec. 2 – US President-elect Donald Trump says there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip are not released before his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump will repeat that threat in the coming weeks as talks in Cairo and Doha on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal gain momentum.

2025

Jan. 8 – The body of Youssef Ziyadne, an Israeli Bedouin taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, along with evidence suggesting his son may also have been killed, have been found in a tunnel in Gaza, the IDF says. It later confirms the body of Ziyadne’s son Hamza was found alongside him.

Jan. 9 – US and Arab mediators have made some progress in their efforts to reach a ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but not enough to seal a deal, Palestinian sources close to the talks in Qatar say.