A Hamas hostage kidnapped from Israel on October 7 has been rescued alive from a tunnel during a ‘complex’ IDF operation along with more than 200 others.
The military said Qaid Farhan Alkadi was rescued from a terror tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.
A statement by the Israel Defence Force added that he is in stable medical condition and has been transferred to a hospital for medical checks.
The rescue brought a rare moment of joy to Israelis amid months of grinding war but also another painful reminder of the scores of hostages remaining in captivity despite international efforts to broker a cease-fire agreement.
The 52-year-old is from Israel’s Arab Bedouin minority and was working as a guard at a packing factory in Kibbutz Magen, one of several farming communities that were attacked on October 7. He has two wives and is the father of 11 children.
Qaid Farhan Alkadi was rescued alive from Gaza tunnells tunnel during a ‘complex’ IDF operation
Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a Bedouin Israeli hostage who was kidnapped in the deadly October 7 Hamas attack, is greeted by a loved one after being rescued by Israeli forces at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Israel
Israel’s Channel 12 showed Alkadi’s family members sprinting through the hospital where he was brought after they received the news.
It comes after Israeli hostage Noa Argamani – who endured 245 days in Hamas captivity – revealed last week that every night she went to sleep she thought it was ‘going to be my last night alive’.
Hamas-led militants abducted some 250 people in the October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were fighters.
It has displaced 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes and caused heavy destruction across the besieged territory.
Hamas is still holding around 110 hostages, about a third of whom are believed to be dead. Most of the rest were released in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a cease-fire last November.
Israel has rescued a total of eight hostages, including in two operations that killed scores of Palestinians.
Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
A person walks past a wall displaying posters of hostages, most of whom were kidnapped during the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel
A man walks at the site of the Nova festival, where partygoers were killed and kidnapped during the October 7 attack by Hamas
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent months trying to negotiate an agreement in which the remaining hostages would be freed in exchange for a lasting cease-fire. Those talks are ongoing in Egypt this week, but there has been no sign of any breakthrough.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced intense criticism from families of the hostages and much of the Israeli public for not yet reaching a deal with Hamas to bring them home.
Hamas hopes to trade the hostages for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.
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