Israel says hostage seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 rescued in “complex operation” by troops in Gaza

Jerusalem — the Israeli military said Tuesday that it has rescued one of the scores of people abducted in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. The military said Qaid Farhan Alkadi was rescued “in a complex operation in the southern Gaza Strip.” 

The Israeli military’s Army Radio network said Alkadi was the first hostage troops had managed to find and rescue alive from inside the vast network of Hamas tunnels in Gaza. Three previous operations rescued hostages who were being held in buildings above ground, the network said, adding later that Alkadi was found alone inside the tunnel by troops, without other abductees or militants. 

Army Radio, which is government owned but editorially independent, said there was no fighting involved in the rescue operation as there was “no resistance from terrorists,” which it said could have been due to him escaping his captors, or his captors fleeing amid the ongoing military operation in the area. 

Alkadi, 52, 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 Oct. 7. He has two wives and is the father of 11 children.

Israel’s Channel 12 showed Alkadi’s family members sprinting through the hospital where he was brought after they received the news.

Hamas-led militants abducted some 250 people in the Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war 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 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement congratulating the Israeli military and intelligence services Tuesday “on another successful liberation operation,” adding that his administration would continue working “tirelessly to return all of our abductees.”

He said those efforts would include both “negotiations and liberation operations,” which would “require our military presence in the field, and unceasing military pressure on 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. The latest round of those talks, over the weekend in Cairo, appeared to have made little headway, but Israel said it remained committed to the dialogue.

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.