At 1.49 am on Tuesday, Israeli commandos climbed to the roof of a two-storey building in the middle of the southern city of Rafah.
Acting on intelligence that two hostages were being held inside, the elite counter-terrorism soldiers blasted their way into an apartment on the second floor, setting off explosives attached to the front door to force their way in.
Three Hamas terrorists standing in the corridor were killed instantly. Those men were guarding Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, who were kidnapped from their kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak just across from Gaza 129 days earlier.
The daring raid marks one of the few occasions Israeli ground forces have entered Rafah since their war on Hamas began. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is preparing to launch a full-scale assault on the city where one million Gazans are sheltering.
The raid on Rafah was made possible by highly advanced Israeli intelligence. Commandos were alerted not only about the situation in the apartment complex but also that a high number of Hamas fighters were stationed in two other adjacent buildings.