Kidnapping and Hostages

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      At Least 18 People Killed in Multiple Suicide Bombings in Nigeria

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      The emergency services said that three female attackers had detonated devices at a wedding and at a funeral in a city once ruled by Boko Haram. So far, no group has claimed responsibility.At least 18 people were killed and dozens of others were wounded in a series of suicide bombings on Saturday afternoon in northeastern Nigeria, including at the wedding of a young couple and at a funeral, according to local officials.Barkindo Saidu, the director general of Borno State’s emergency management agency, said that three female attackers had struck distinct locations in Gwoza, a bustling city in Borno State that has been the center of Islamist insurgency by Boko Haram over the past 15 years.The victims included children and pregnant women, Mr. Saidu said. Some Nigerian news outlets reported that at least 30 people had been killed.As of Sunday afternoon, no group had claimed responsibility for the bombings. The blasts resembled attacks carried out by Boko Haram, whose fighters have killed tens of thousands in Nigeria and whose aggression in the region has led to the displacement of more than two million people.The first attacker on Saturday detonated a bomb that she was wearing at a wedding celebration, Mr. Saidu said in a preliminary report seen by The New York Times. Seven people died in that explosion, including the attacker and a baby she had with her, according to Kenneth Daso, a public relations officer with the police in Borno. Two attackers struck later near a hospital and at the funeral services of a victim of the earlier blast, Mr. Saidu said.Among the seven people killed in the explosion at the wedding were three men, a high school teacher, an entrepreneur and a bicycle seller, said Baba Shehu Saidu, a friend of theirs and of the groom who said that he had planned to attend the wedding but had had to cancel at the last minute.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-Haitian Gang Leader Is Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison in Gunrunning Scheme

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      Prosecutors said Joly Germine, 31, who had led the 400 Mawozo gang, was involved in a conspiracy that used ransom money that had been paid for the release of American hostages to buy and smuggle guns into Haiti.The former leader of a Haitian street gang was sentenced on Monday to 35 years in prison for his role in directing a gunrunning scheme that smuggled guns to Haiti using ransom money that had been paid for the release of American hostages, prosecutors said.Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced the former gang leader, Joly Germine, 31, of Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, in a Washington courtroom.Mr. Germine, who was known as Yonyon as the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti, pleaded guilty on Jan. 31 to a 48-count indictment that charged him with several crimes, including money laundering, smuggling and conspiracy to defraud the United States, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said in a statement on Monday. The 35-year sentence does not address other charges of conspiracy to commit hostage taking that Mr. Germine also faces after the 400 Mawozo gang claimed responsibility in 2021 for taking 16 American hostages and one Canadian. The hostage-taking case, which Judge Bates is also overseeing, is to go to trial next year, court records show. After the 400 Mawozo gang took the 17 hostages in the fall of 2021, the gang sought a ransom of $1 million for each hostage, prosecutors said. (The hostages, who were part of a missionary group visiting an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, were all released or managed to escape by December.) The gang had also taken three Americans hostage in the summer of 2021, prosecutors said. It used some of the ransom money obtained in that scheme to buy at least 24 guns, including AR-15s and AK-47s, which were smuggled from the United States into Haiti, prosecutors said.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement on Monday that the money used in the gunrunning scheme had been “extorted from kidnapping American citizens.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Israeli Hostage Rescue, Minutes Made the Difference

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      When a truck carrying three of the four rescued hostages broke down and came under fire, Israel says it called in an airstrike. Scores of Palestinians, including children, were killed during the operation, according to Gazan officials.When the four Israelis woke up in Gaza on Saturday, they had been held hostage by Hamas for 245 days. The buildings in which they were being kept, two low-rise, concrete apartment blocks, looked much like the other nearby residences in a civilian neighborhood full of Palestinian families.Within a few hours, the captives, three men and one woman, would be reunited with their own families, the result of a risky, long-planned rescue operation in which the full might of the Israeli military would be used to devastating effect.“I’m so emotional,” one hostage, Noa Argamani, 26, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a phone call after her release. “It’s been so long since I heard Hebrew.”The rescue effort in Nuseirat involved hundreds of intelligence officers and two teams of commandos who simultaneously stormed the homes in which the hostages were being held, the Israeli military said.In one apartment, where the male hostages were imprisoned, a firefight broke out between the soldiers and the Hamas guards, according to the military and video footage it released of the encounter. Later, and under a hail of gunfire, the truck in which three hostages and a wounded Israeli officer were being evacuated broke down and was surrounded by militants, Israeli officials said.In an effort to give the rescuers enough time and ample cover to get the captives to freedom, the military said, the air force began striking dozens of nearby targets. Many Palestinians became aware of the fighting only when they heard bombs exploding. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Other War: How Israel Scours Gaza for Clues About the Hostages

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      The rescue of four Israelis in Gaza in a ferocious assault over the weekend offered a glimpse into an ambitious intelligence operation aimed at bringing home those held by Hamas.The hostages in Gaza are being moved around, with Hamas shuttling some from one apartment to another to obscure their whereabouts, while others are believed to be in tunnels underground.All the while, at a “fusion cell” quietly formed in Israel last fall, American and Israeli intelligence and military analysts share imagery from drones and satellites, along with communications intercepts and any other information that comes their way that might offer a hint to the hostages’ locations.More than one war is being waged in the Gaza Strip.For the most part, the world sees the airstrikes and the ground invasion, which Israel says are aimed at dismantling Hamas and have reduced much of the territory to rubble, setting off a humanitarian crisis. But the rescue on Saturday of four hostages was a reminder that Israel and Hamas are engaged in another, less visible battle:The militants are determined to hold on to the hostages they seized during their deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, for use as human bargaining chips. The Israelis are determined to bring them home.For more than eight months, the militants have had the upper hand.Israeli and American officials say they do not know where many hostages are being held. And even when they do, in many cases, a rescue mission is simply not possible.To date, Israel has rescued a total of seven hostages, but the stark reality is that since the war began, more hostages have died, either in the fighting or at the hands of Hamas. Israel has recovered far more bodies than living hostages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel’s Euphoria Over Hostage Rescue May Be Fleeting

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      The operation conducted by Israel’s military to free four hostages resulted in a high death toll among Palestinians and has not resolved the challenges facing the Israeli government.For months, Israelis had heard only about hostages being killed or declared dead in Gaza. The “lucky” families were those whose loved ones’ remains were retrieved by soldiers, at great risk, and brought home to Israel for burial.So the audacious rescue on Saturday of four living hostages instantly raised morale in Israel and offered at least a momentary victory for the country’s embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.But by Sunday, euphoria was already giving way to a harsher reality. The heavy air and ground assault that accompanied the rescue killed scores of Palestinians, including civilians, according to Gaza health officials, puncturing Israel’s claims that the operation was a resounding success, at least internationally. And the operation failed to resolve any of the deep dilemmas and challenges vexing the Israeli government, according to analysts.Eight months into its grinding war in Gaza, Israel still appears to be far from achieving its stated objectives of dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. And Israelis fear that time is running out for many of the hostages in Gaza. About a third of the 120 that remain have already been declared dead by Israeli authorities.Andrey Kozlov, center, and Almog Meir Jan, second from the right, two of four hostages who were rescued in Gaza, arriving in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Saturday.Tomer Appelbaum/Associated PressAt the same time, Israel’s leadership is grappling with an escalation of hostilities across the northern border with Lebanon and battling increasing international isolation and opprobrium over the war in Gaza, including allegations of genocide that are being heard by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Rescues 4 Hostages in Assault That Killed Scores of Gazans

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      The news was met with jubilation in Israel, where tensions over the hostages’ safety have been rising in recent months.Israeli soldiers and special operations police rescued four hostages from Gaza on Saturday amid a heavy air and ground assault and flew them back to Israel by helicopter to be reunited with their families. The news was met with jubilation in Israel, where anxieties over the fate of the roughly 120 remaining captives have been rising after eight months of war.Residents in the town of Nuseirat, where the hostages were being held, reported intense bombardments during the rescue operation. Khalil al-Daqran, an official at a hospital in the city, told reporters that scores of Palestinians had been killed and that the hospital’s wards and corridors were packed with the wounded.Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, told reporters the rescue mission took place around 11 a.m. Saturday, when forces located the four hostages in two separate buildings where they were being held by Hamas militants. He said the Israeli forces came under fire but managed to extract the hostages in two helicopters. One special forces police officer died.The freed hostages — Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 — were kidnapped by Palestinian militants from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, when about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 250 taken hostage, Israel says. All four were in good medical condition and were transferred to a hospital in Israel for further examinations, the Israeli authorities said in a statement.Almog Meir Jan embracing loved ones on Saturday in Ramat Gan, Israel, in a photograph released by the Israeli Army.Israeli Army, via ReutersThe fate of the hostages has been a source of intense political pressure on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, amid the broader criticism that his government, for its own reasons, is in no hurry to wind down the conflict or to address the issue of who should govern Gaza after the war.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Are the Four Hostages Rescued in Gaza?

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      Noa Argamani and her father, Yakov Argamani, after Israeli forces rescued four hostages from the central Gaza Strip.Israeli Army, via ReutersFour hostages abducted from the Nova music festival and held by militants in Gaza for the last eight months were rescued by Israeli forces on Saturday.Since the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, Israel has only freed a small number of hostages through military force. Saturday’s rescues occurred in Nuseirat in central Gaza, where health officials reported that dozens of Palestinians had been killed.Here is what we know about the four hostages who were brought back to Israel.Noa ArgamaniNoa Argamani, 26, was taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attack alongside her boyfriend, Avinatan Or. Viral footage showed Ms. Argamani being taken into Gaza on the back of a motorcycle as she cried out in desperation.Ms. Argamani and her boyfriend were abducted from the Nova music festival in southern Israel, where militants carried out brutal atrocities against partygoers.The plight of Ms. Argamani received outsized attention, in part because her mother, Liora, is suffering from brain cancer and her condition has deteriorated significantly in recent months.“I don’t know how much time I have left,” the mother said last year. “I wish to see my Noa at home.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Intense Security at Peaceful Parade for Israel in Manhattan

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      The annual parade focused this year on the hostages in Gaza. Thousands marched, and with many streets blocked off, there were few protesters.Thousands of supporters of Israel marched along Fifth Avenue on Sunday during a heavily policed Israel Day parade that took on a more somber tone this year as the war in Gaza enters its eighth month.The normally jubilant event, which has been held annually since 1964, had fewer spectators in Midtown Manhattan than usual because of intense security. The parade — expected to draw 40,000 participants, all of whom needed credentials to march — has been previously called “Celebrate Israel.” This year, it was renamed “Israel Day on 5th” and focused on remembering the hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7.The event was mostly peaceful and drew very few protesters. Police barricades, chain-link fences and checkpoints limited access to the route.New York has had roughly 3,000 demonstrations related to the Israel-Hamas war since October, according to Mayor Eric Adams, most of them pro-Palestinian, and hundreds of protesters have been arrested. No Palestinian flags were in evidence along the parade route on Sunday.Still, moments of tension erupted between participants and politicians. At the start of the parade, the arrival of elected officials, including Gov. Kathy Hochul; Letitia James, the attorney general of New York; and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, drew jeers from the crowd.As Mr. Schumer began to speak, at least one person shouted “you betrayed us,” a reference to Mr. Schumer’s sharp criticism of the Israeli government in a Senate speech in March.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More