After more than 700 days in captivity, the 20 hostages believed to be still alive in Gaza are set to be freed in the coming days, after the Israeli government’s ratification of a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
They were among the 251 people kidnapped during the 7 October attacks on southern Israel, in which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people.
Hamas is expected to release the living hostages within 72 hours, after which Israel will free 250 Palestinians serving long terms in Israeli prisons, and 1,700 others detained in Gaza during the war.
A further 26 hostages held are presumed dead and the fate of two is unknown. Hamas has indicated that recovering the bodies of the dead may take longer than releasing those who are alive.
Here are details of those who are expected to return home.
Matan Angrest, 22
Matan Angrest. Photograph: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/Reuters
In June, Angrest’s family released video that appeared to show the Israeli army soldier being pulled from a tank by scores of men at the Nahal Oz military base on 7 October 2023.
“For me as a mother, it’s the hardest thing to watch,” Anat Angrest told CNN as she explained she had decided to make the video public due to fears her son had been abandoned and forgotten by officials.
Gali Berman and Ziv Berman, 28Gali (left) and Ziv Berman.
The twin brothers were taken hostage at Kfar Aza kibbutz, less than two miles from the border with Gaza.
Speaking to the Guardian one month after their abduction, their older brother Liran Berman said life would never be the same. “We had our lives before October 7 and now we don’t know what will happen in the future,” he said. “Even if my brothers are released, it will leave lifelong scars.”
Elkana Bohbot, 36
Bohbot was taken captive at the Nova music festival during the raids on 7 October 2023. He had stayed behind to try to help those wounded during the attacks, according to the American Jewish Committee.
In May he was identified as the hostage seen in a video published by Hamas’s armed wing. The video appeared to show Bohbot in duress. He said the bombardment could cost him his life and he pleaded to be reunited with his wife and son.
Rom Braslavski, 21
Braslavski was also abducted at the Nova music festival, where he was working as a security guard, according to the World Jewish Congress. His family was later told he had saved a number of people before being kidnapped.
In April, he appeared in a video filmed by his captors in Gaza. The footage, which appeared to show him emaciated and in tears, sparked international condemnation.
Nimrod Cohen, 20
Cohen, a corporal in the Israeli army, was guarding the area near the Nirim kibbutz close to Gaza’s frontier when his unit was overrun by armed militants, his father, Yehuda Cohen, recently told UN News.
This week, as news emerged of the ceasefire deals, his father said it was the moment the family had been waiting for. “It could have come much earlier. Let this next three days pass with no one trying to sabotage it,” he told reporters.
Ariel Cunio, 28, and David Cunio, 35Pictures of David (left) and Ariel Cunio at a protest calling for the release of hostages. Photograph: Amir Levy/Getty Images
The two brothers were kidnapped from Nir Oz kibbutz. Ariel was taken alongside his girlfriend, Arbel Yehoud, who was released in January, while David was abducted with his wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, who was released in November 2023 along with their three-year-old twin daughters, Ema and Yuly.
Ariel and David’s father, Luis Cunio, this week wrote a piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz detailing how the family had been “living the unknown” for two years. His granddaughters “don’t understand why their father and uncle aren’t returning; they live the trauma every day”, he said. “At night they wake up crying; all kinds of things. It’s very hard for us.”
Their father expressed cautious optimism that the family’s ordeal would soon be over. “I hope we’ll see you soon, so hang on. We have no choice but to believe that at the end of the day, this story will end.”
Evyatar David, 24
David was taken at the Nova music festival. In August his family expressed fears that Hamas was starving him after he was seen on video saying he had not eaten for days and had received barely any drinking water.
The footage prompted outrage and dismay across Israel. In comments made under duress, David appeared to urge the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to agree to a ceasefire.
In a statement, the family accused Hamas of starving David for propaganda.
Clockwise from top left: Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, Maxim Herkin, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David. Composite: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/ReutersGuy Gilboa-Dalal, 24
Gilboa-Dalal was at the Nova festival, dancing with his brother in a grove of trees just a few miles from Gaza. Soon after, he was kidnapped by Hamas.
“It’s so hard missing him all day every day, thinking about him all day every day,” his brother, Gal Gilboa-Dalal, told the Guardian this week. “And as time goes by it’s getting harder and harder [to bear], and harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Maxim Herkin, 37
Herkin was also at the Nova music festival when he was kidnapped. The Russian-Israeli dual citizen had attended the event by chance after being invited by friends at the last minute, according to the Times of Israel.
Born in the Donbas region of Ukraine, he has a three-year-old daughter and was the primary provider for his mother and 11-year-old brother.
Eitan Horn, 38
Eitan Horn. Photograph: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/Reuters
Horn was kidnapped along with his brother, Iair, from Iair’s home in Nir Oz kibbutz.
Iair was released in February and told the Times of Israel in July that he had set aside his own recovery to focus on the release of his brother and the other hostages still in Gaza. “My life is frozen right now,” he said. “I live in a nightmare that every day they are kidnapping me anew.”
This week, their father spoke to the Guardian about the imminent return of his son. “I felt good when I heard the news but I will feel much better when I see Eitan and the rest of the hostages. With God’s help, he will return on Monday from hell,” said Itzik Horn, 73.
Segev Kalfon, 27
Segev Kalfon. Photograph: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/Reuters
Kalfon was abducted as he was trying to leave the Nova festival. Earlier he had been on the phone with his family as the vehicle he was in slowly inched forward, trapped in a traffic jam of people trying to flee the area.
“We were on the phone for an hour with him until 8.10am,” his father, Kobi Kalfon, told the Times of Israel in July. “It was crazy, atomic pressure. I told them just to run.”
A friend told the family that Hamas militants had approached the car and grabbed Segev, who at the time was studying finance at a Tel Aviv university. His family has spoken out about their worries about his health, particularly as he had been diagnosed with a severe form of anxiety and put on medication weeks before the 7 October attacks.
Bar Kupershtein, 23
Kupershtein was kidnapped at the Nova music festival, where he had been working as a bouncer. During the attack he stayed behind to assist the Israeli police and security team and provide first aid to the injured, according to the Jerusalem Post.
In May his family was among the thousands of Israelis who took to the streets to call for a ceasefire that would bring the remaining hostages home from Gaza. “The only thing that keeps us going is the hope that Bar is alive and surviving,” his aunt Ora Rubinstein told Reuters at the time.
Omri Miran, 48
Miran was at his home in kibbutz Nahal Oz with his wife, Lishay Lavi, and their daughters, Roni and Alma, when they were woken by sirens. As they took shelter in their safe room, word came that Hamas had begun to enter some of the homes.
The militants forced one of their teenage neighbours to bang on the door of their safe room and it was made clear to them that the teenager and the family would be shot if they did not open up. The family did so and eventually Miran was tied up and led away, his wife told the Guardian.
“Roni was terrified, screaming. She tried to go with her daddy, I had to hold her back. I told Omri I love him and not to be a hero. I said do whatever they want because I want you back,” said Lavi.
In August, Miran’s brother-in-law spoke to the US broadcaster NPR about the family’s ordeal. “Roni just celebrated her fourth birthday – a second without her father,” Moshe Lavi said. “Alma is two years old, [she’s] never celebrated a birthday with her father. He was kidnapped when she was six months old.”
Eitan Mor, 25
Mor was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival. A survivor later said he had spotted Mor and a friend bringing others to safety before he was kidnapped, according to the Times of Israel.
Clockwise from top left; Bar Kupershtein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Matan Zangauker, Alon Ohel and Yosef-Haim Ohana. Composite: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/ReutersYosef-Haim Ohana, 25
In February the family of Ohana said, without providing further details, that they had received a “clear” sign that he was alive, after being taken hostage at the Nova music festival.
At the time of his capture, he and a friend had been attempting to provide aid to injured partygoers, according to the Times of Israel, while the Jerusalem Post said he had gone to the festival with friends to celebrate his imminent departure to the US to take a pilot course.
“[He is a] strong guy, both in mind and body,” his aunt Hana Mastronov told reporters recently. “But there are limits to how much strength a person has.”
Alon Ohel, 24
Ohel was kidnapped at the Nova festival. In August, his mother wrote a piece for the Observer pleading for leaders around the world to do more to end the war and bring the hostages home.
“My son and the other hostages, most of them young men, still have their whole lives ahead of them. I know that my son will play the piano again, filling the air with everything from Beethoven to Elton John to his own songs,” wrote Idit Ohel.
“I know my son will begin his studies at the music school where he was accepted, that he will surf again, cook again and do all the other things that brought a smile to his face. I want to believe that I will hug him again,” she added. “Please, help make that possible.”
Avinatan Or, 32
Avinatan Or. Photograph: Courtesy of Bring Them Home Now/Reuters
Or was kidnapped at gunpoint along with his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, at the Nova music festival. Argamani was released after 245 days in captivity.
Speaking this week, Argamani said: “Avinatan is someone words can’t describe.” She told the news website Ynet Global: “There’s this quiet strength in him that radiates peace. One of the sayings he loved was: ‘A lion doesn’t have to roar to let the other animals know he’s king.’ That’s exactly who he is – always present, even when silent.”
Matan Zangauker, 25
Zanguaker was abducted with his partner, Ilana Gritzewsky, from their home in Nir Oz kibbutz. Gritzewsky was released in November 2023.
In a letter published this week, his mother, Einav Zangauker, said she was hoping to be able to hug her son soon. “For two years I’ve imagined how I will hold you close to my breast, the way a mother hugs her newborn child,” she wrote in Haaretz. “I wonder what will be the first words I say. I long to hear you call me Mom. I can’t imagine that moment when I’ll have you back again.”