The Israeli army and secret services announced on Tuesday the rescue of one of the more than 100 Israeli hostages in a tunnel in southern Gaza. About the operation, described as “complex and courageous” by the country’s authorities, few details have been provided for the safety of the other hostages, the troops and for reasons of “national security”. The secrecy – and the rumors on social networks, free from the rules of military censorship – suggest that this is the first name of a larger rescue yet to be announced.
This is Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a 52-year-old Bedouin father of 11 children. He lives in a village near the town of Rahat in the Negev Desert and worked as a guard at a packaging factory in Magen, one of the kibbutzim near Gaza attacked on 7 October 2023.
Hamas militants took him hostage that day and on Tuesday, 326 days later, forces from various elite units found him inside a tunnel. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari did not reveal whether, as initial reports suggested, he had previously escaped from his captors. “He was in the tunnel and our forces found him,” he said at a press conference shortly after the official announcement, in which he barely added any details about the operation.
The rescued man is in good health, said a spokesman for Soroka, the hospital where he was taken and where his family has met. One of his brothers has shared a selfie in which Qaid Farhan Alkadi appears in good health, although thinner than in the photos taken before his capture.
Government Press Office/Yossi If (via REUTERS)
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
He is the eighth Israeli hostage rescued by troops in nearly 11 months of war. The vast majority – around 100 – were exchanged for the release of Palestinian prisoners during a week-long ceasefire in November. The army has also recovered around 30 bodies, the last six last week.
Delegations from Israel and Hamas are currently negotiating a ceasefire agreement in Cairo, under which the remaining 108 would return, but so far, without any substantial progress. For this reason, the main forum pushing for the exchange has issued a statement to focus on dialogue, because “military operations alone cannot free” all the hostages still in Gaza. “They cannot afford to wait for a similar miracle,” it says.
Follow all the international information atFacebook andXor inour weekly newsletter.
