Israeli hostage rescued by military in southern Gaza Strip

A hostage taken by Hamas-led militants during the October 7 rampage in Israel that sparked the war in Gaza was rescued following a “complex rescue operation” in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Qaid Farhan Alkadi's health was “normal.” A video released by the military shows Alkadi smiling and laughing after his rescue with commandos and later with his family and medical staff at an Israeli hospital.

Hagari said Alkadi, a member of Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, was alone when he was rescued from an underground tunnel thanks to extensive information about the site. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Alkadi, 52, “was able to free himself,” but Hagari said troops “rescued Farhan from underground, he met our forces underground.”

Alkadi later told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that the other hostages were “suffering.”

More than 200 people were taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack, and more than 100 of them remain in the militants' hands, although many are presumed dead. Hamas also holds two Israeli civilians captured in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.

The forum, which has frequently criticized the Israeli government for its failure to reach an agreement to release the prisoners, said in a statement that it welcomed the rescue but that an agreement was still necessary.

“The wonderful news of his return is a ray of light in the darkness for the families of the hostages and the people of Israel,” the statement said. “An agreement is the only way to achieve the return of the remaining 108 hostages – those alive for rehabilitation and those murdered for a proper burial.”

Developments:

∎ Israel has issued several evacuation orders for the entire Gaza Strip, the most since the start of the ten-month war, sparking an outcry from Palestinians, the United Nations and aid agencies over the shrinking of humanitarian zones and the lack of safe areas.

∎ Negotiations on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that would include the release of some or all of the remaining hostages will be moved from Cairo, Egypt, to Doha, Qatar, authorities said.

Speaking to Herzog, Alkadi said he was “very grateful to the State of Israel and the army” for rescuing him, but called on the government to “do everything possible to bring the people home.”

“24 hours without sleep, people are suffering, suffering, you can't imagine it,” he told Herzog in an interview released by the president's office and translated by The Times of Israel. He said when he “heard Hebrew outside the door, I couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it.”

Alkadi praised the “sacred work” of the Israeli military and said they “risked their lives and did everything to save me.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Alkadi by phone and told him “the entire people of Israel rejoice at his rescue,” his office said in a statement. Alkadi thanked Netanyahu for the rescue, the prime minister's office said.

Alkadi belongs to Israel's Arab Bedouin minority and was one of six Bedouins captured by Hamas that day. According to Israeli media, he lives with his family in an unincorporated village south of Rahat. He has two wives and eleven children. His brother Hathem told Ynetnews that Alkadi had lost weight but appeared healthy. He is the eighth hostage to be rescued alive from the Gaza Strip since the war began.

“We are happy that we saw him and, above all, that he is still alive,” he said. “He asked about his family, if his children were OK and if his mother was OK.”

Israel's Channel 12 showed Alkadi's family members running through the hospital where he was taken after receiving the news. Rahat's mayor Talal al-Kernawi met Alkadi and described him as being in good spirits and overjoyed to be back home.

“We are all happy that Farhan is back. We see the colour returning to his face. He is finally seeing the sun, seeing light,” he said.

The head of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum's medical team called the rescue a “ray of hope,” but Professor Hagai Levine added that the health status of the other hostages remains unknown.

“It's obviously impossible to save them all through military operations,” Levine said. “After a few days (at home), they realize what they've been through. It's a long recovery process.”

UNICEF hopes to start administering the polio vaccine to children in Gaza on Saturday, if conditions on the ground allow. More than 640,000 children are to be vaccinated and 1.2 million doses arrived in the enclave this week, the agency said. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Monday that UN agencies and partners “are ready to vaccinate children” but urged the warring parties to take a “humanitarian pause” so the vaccination could be carried out safely.

Last week, a case of polio was confirmed in Gaza in a 10-month-old child whose condition had stabilized after paralysis of the left lower leg, UNICEF said. It was the first case of the life-long, debilitating disease in over 25 years. Although there is no cure, vaccinations against the disease can provide lifelong protection.

Hamas leaders on Tuesday urged Palestinians living in the West Bank to escalate tensions with Israeli settlers after an Arab man was killed in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. Hamas urged Palestinians to gather outside Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque and called for a day of “anger and mobilization” in the West Bank.

“We also call on our brave resistance and our revolutionary youth in the occupied West Bank to escalate their confrontations with the criminal enemy and its settler gangs,” Hamas said in a statement.

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Iran's supreme leader said he was ready to resume negotiations with the United States over Tehran's nuclear program, but warned reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian that the United States could not be trusted. A 2015 deal had limited Iran's nuclear enrichment in return for easing economic sanctions, but the United States under Donald Trump withdrew from the deal three years later. Now U.S. officials warn that Iran is close to being able to produce nuclear weapons.

“We should not wait for the enemies' consent,” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a video message. “It is not a contradiction to act against the same enemy in some places, it is not an obstacle.”

The massive clash, in which hundreds of Hezbollah rockets were fired at Israel while Israel sent more than 100 fighter jets to Lebanon to destroy militant targets, does not appear to have sparked an immediate escalation in violence, a sign that the near-term risk of an expanded war in the Middle East has receded, the top U.S. general says. But Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters that Iran remains a wild card that could spark an expanded conflict across the Middle East. Iran has vowed to retaliate for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

“Iran's reaction will determine Israel's reaction, which in turn will determine whether or not there will be a major conflict.”

Contributors: Reuters

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