Hostages released by Hamas identified as Chicago-area mother, daughter

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Enas Alashray

GAZA (Reuters) - Two American hostages freed on Friday by the armed wing of Hamas were identified as Chicago-area residents Judith Tai Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie Shoshana Raanan, who Israel said were being reunited with family on an Israeli military base.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the mother and daughter were abducted by Iranian-backed Islamist militants of Hamas from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where they were staying during the surprise assault on southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7.

Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, had been visiting the kibbutz, about a mile from the Gaza border, as part of a trip to Israel that began in September to celebrate the Jewish holidays and the 85th birthday of Judith's mother, U.S. news media outlets reported, citing relatives as their sources.

The pair were handed over to Israeli forces at the border of the Gaza Strip and were "on their way to a meeting point at a military base in the center of the country, where their family members are waiting for them," Netanyahu said in a statement.

The mother and daughter were later pictured in an image carried by Israeli media showing them walking with a group of uniformed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel escorting them from the border moments after their release. The two appeared healthy as they were led through the illuminated darkness hand-in-hand with a man walking between them.

U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Qatar and Israel for their partnership in securing the release of the two women.

The women were among about 200 hostages that Hamas said it took during the deadly rampage its forces carried out from the Gaza Strip on communities and military bases in southern Israel, part of the bloodiest attack on the country since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Hamas has said 50 more captives are held by other armed groups in the coastal Palestinian enclave. It said more than 20 hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, but has not given any further details.

RELEASE A 'FIRST STEP'

It was not immediately clear why the Raanans were chosen as the first hostages from the Oct. 7 incursion to be released, except that a spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said they were freed "for humanitarian reasons" in response to Qatari mediation.

Media reports in the United States said the pair were from Evanston, an Illinois suburb of Chicago. Former NBC News Middle East correspondent Martin Fletcher told MSNBC the Raanans are relatives of his.

Israel's Kan public broadcaster reported the two were dual Israeli-American nationals.

Hamas has previously described captives with "foreign" nationalities as guests who would be released when circumstances allow, without saying if that includes Israelis with dual nationality.

A source briefed on the hostage negotiations called the release of the two Americans "a first step," adding, "discussions are ongoing for more releases.”

Friends described Judith Raanan to the New York Times as an artist and skilled cook of Israeli food who is devoted to her Jewish faith, which informs her paintings, and kept kosher in her home. She had recently worked as a home aide for elderly people, the Times reported.

Natalie Raanan's brother, Ben Raanan, told the Denver Post his sister was weighing whether to find work in the fashion industry, become an interior designer or apprentice as a tattoo artist.

ISRAELI OPTIONS HAMPERED

Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,400 Israelis, by pounding Gaza with air strikes, killing more than 4,000 people, and has said it will act to free the hostages while wiping out Hamas.

Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the border of the enclave for an expected ground invasion, calling on Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza, where it says Hamas is dug in.

Netanyahu's options for striking back at Hamas are certain to be hampered by concern for the safety of the Israeli captives seized in the raid, as a nation scarred by past hostage crises faces perhaps its worst one yet.

Netanyahu has vowed “mighty vengeance,” but the fate of the Israeli soldiers, elderly people, women and children taken into Gaza complicates how Israel delivers on that promise while abiding by a longstanding principle of leaving no one behind.

American and British officials said they have been working with Qatar to secure the release of hostages, including their own citizens, held in Gaza. Other countries whose citizens were taken captive include Thailand, Argentina, Germany, France and Portugal.

A spokesman for the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubaida, said Hamas released the two U.S. citizens in part "to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless."

(This story has been refiled to add the dropped word 'were' in paragraph 5)

(Reporting by Enas Alashray in Cairo and and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Michael Georgy and Steve Gorman; Editing by Grant McCool)