AMAZING: New details on operation freeing Louis Har and Fernando Merman

New details have now emerged regarding the IDF operation freeing hostages Louis Har and Fernando Marman in February 2024, reported by Army Radio today (Wednesday).

First, there's the moment when the hostages were almost killed: During the rescue operation, from the second floor of a building in the Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah, a Hamas terrorist in a nearby building managed to shoot at the hostages.

The bullets hit close to one of them but didn't strike them. Within seconds, the terrorist was eliminated by a YAMAM police special forces sniper who identified him. A source familiar with the operation's details said that "we were a hair's breadth away from the operation failing and the hostages being hit."

It was also revealed that the operation was postponed and not approved several times due to concerns that the operation area was too exposed to terrorist fire without proper cover. All buildings around the complex in Rafah were filled with dozens of terrorists, during a period when Rafah was still populated and the IDF had not yet entered to operate there in force. The operation commanders were required to submit plans for approval repeatedly, and only after several rounds of corrections and delays did the operation proceed.

The Shin Bet pushed for choosing YAMAM as the force to conduct the rescue operation, instead of Sayeret Matkal, one of the IDF's elite forces often chosen for missions such as this. According to an Israeli source, a few weeks earlier, the rescue operation of Sahar Baruch led by Sayeret Matkal had failed, and therefore the Shin Bet, which leads hostage rescue operations both operationally and in intelligence - pushed to choose YAMAM as the responsible force, instead.

This was an unconventional choice, but YAMAM proved themselves, and they were also chosen to carry out the subsequent operation - Operation Arnon in June 2024, in which Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan, and Andrey Kozlov were rescued.