[47] Notable incidents include the 1994 abduction of Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman by Hamas, resulting in his death during a failed rescue attempt by IDF forces.

[4][34] The 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel, and Gilad Shaar, heightened tensions and contributed to opening of Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

[56] On the morning of 7 October 2023, around 6:30 a.m. IST, around 6,000 Palestinians including 3,800 from the Hamas "elite Nukhba forces" launched an attack into Israel from 119 sites on its border with the Gaza Strip.

[71] Such as 75-year-old historian Alex Danzig who has written books on Poland's Jewish community and the Holocaust,[72][7] and the Bibas family were taken from their home, including an infant and 4-year-old were taken from Nir Oz.

[84][85][86] American-Israeli author Robby Berman set up a fund offering a reward of 1 million Israeli shekels for the release of hostages in Gaza, specifically aimed at encouraging Palestinians to aid in the rescue of Jewish prisoners.

[99] In a reconstruction of the negotiations, Franklin Foer has written that by October 13, 2023, the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in a discussion with Antony Blinken, said that Hamas had succeeded far beyond its expectations in taking far more hostages than it could manage, and was disposed to release some in exchange for a pause in Israeli airstrikes.

[102][103] Shortly after the October attacks Thailand had been in official talks with Hamas with a group convened by the countries parliamentary speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha about the release of their citizens.

[113][114] In April 2024 it was reported that a senior Hamas official stated that the group did not have 40 living hostages in Gaza that met the criteria for an exchange under a proposed cease-fire that was being negotiated.

[125] On 8 June 2024 four hostages who had been abducted during the Re'im music festival massacre were rescued from two separate areas in the Nuseirat refugee camp by members of the Yamam, the Shin Bet and the IDF.

[139] However, some of the Palestinians prisoners that were freed as part of the deal had been convicted of offenses ranging from attempted murder, to less severe ones such as inflicting property damage, hindering police work or assembling unlawfully.

[148] Along with reported CCTV footage released on 19 November, Israel announced that an IDF soldier who had been captured on 7 October had been killed by Hamas while being held at the Al-Shifa hospital.

Abu Obaida, the spokesperson for Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, did not disclose specific details but criticized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's insistence on using military pressure to free prisoners instead of negotiating a deal.

[167] On 16 October, Hamas released a video of a 21-year-old French Israeli woman pleading to be returned to her family, while someone bandages her injured arm and a scar is visible.

A physician advising the families of held hostages also echoed this statement, warning of the trauma faced and the long process of restoring a sense of trust and control after being released.

[172] Renana Eitan, the head of psychiatry at the Ichilov Tel Aviv medical centre, said that among the freed hostages she examined were children drugged by their captors, including with ketamine, and were suffering from withdrawal.

[174] Hamas reportedly aimed to make the hostages appear calm and happy after enduring prolonged physical abuse, deprivation, and psychological terror in captivity.

[175][176] Dror Mendel, director of the Dana-Dwek Children's Hospital, described orthopedic injuries, scarring and burns, and "very low hygiene standards... lice, rashes, skin irritation [and] inflammation".

[177] Prof. Itay Pesach, Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, said that patients describe "the entire range of abuse you could dream of... not different from the testimonies of people who came back from the ghetto or concentration camp".

[177] Levine spoke on the lacking medical care given to the hostages, physical and psychological abuse, and starvation: "at first there was an implicit assumption that the conditions of captivity by Hamas are reasonable.

[180][better source needed] Many hostages told relatives that they were totally isolated from the outside world and had no information about their family members, who in many cases[181] were also kidnapped or killed in the attack.

[182] Yaniv Yaacov, the uncle of hostages, said in an event in North Macedonia with the Israeli foreign minister that his two nephews were branded using the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle by Hamas.

[183] Hostages released by Hamas later relayed their experiences in captivity, either firsthand, via family members, or through a report from the United Nations:[184][185] Israeli student Noa Argamani, who was at the trance party near Re'im, was kidnapped while with her partner Avinathan Or.

His mother, Rachel Goldberg, has since been vocal in international and diplomatic arenas, including the United Nations and the March for Israel in Washington, D.C., campaigning for his release and demanding humanitarian intervention.

Yarden's act of self-sacrifice in saving her daughter during an escape attempt, and her subsequent two-month-long captivity in Gaza, garnered significant attention until her release on 29 November.

[239] In May 2024, Orit Strook, the Minister of Settlements and National Missions, criticized a potential hostage deal, stating there are "soldiers who left everything behind and went out to fight for goals that the government defined, and we throw it in the trash to save 22 people or 33 or I don't know how many".

[249] On 4 December, eight released Israeli hostages wrote a letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross, asking the organization to provide medical assistance and to visit their relatives still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

"[253][254] In January 2024, the mother of Ron Sherman, a deceased hostage whose body was recovered by the IDF, accused the Israeli military of killing her son by filling the tunnel he was in with poison gas.

It was strongly criticized for the festive atmosphere, for the movement's forming a perceived impediment to the hostages' release, and for its calls for coerced emigration of Palestinians from their country.

[261][262] A delegation of family members of Israeli hostages, along with several dozen lawyers, went to The Hague to file complaints against Hamas leaders at the International Criminal Court, which is empowered to prosecute individuals for serious violations of the Geneva Conventions that amount to war crimes.

Rubinstein did not cite any source for his claim.In May 2024, Haim Rubinstein, official spokesperson for an Israeli opposition leader (Ofer Shelah), a member of the media team for an opposition party (Yesh Atid), and a former spokesman for a group of hostages' families, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "preventing a deal" due to a "conflict of interest": when "the hostages are released, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir will leave the government because they’ll think the price was too high ... Netanyahu knows that if he goes to elections at this time he won't be able to form a new government, and he is motivated by cold political considerations.