Israeli forces rescue a hostage from a Gaza tunnel | International

The Israeli army and secret services announced this Tuesday the rescue of one of the more than 100 Israeli hostages held in a tunnel in southern Gaza. This is Qaid Farhan Alqadi, a 52-year-old Bedouin and father of 11 children, who worked as a guard at a packaging factory in Magen, one of the kibbutzim near Gaza, on October 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists took him hostage on that day and this Tuesday, 326 days later, forces from various specialized units took him back to Israel alive.

Authorities have barely provided details of the operation – to preserve “national security” and the safety of the rest of the hostages and soldiers – and throughout the day have downplayed the tale of heroism. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari initially spoke of a “complex and daring” operation based on “accurate intelligence”, but a senior army commander eventually admitted that prisoner Farhan Alqadi was found alone without his hostages, and that there was no exchange of fire. In the words of the local media’s military affairs correspondent, it was a “coincidence”. “When I heard the Hebrew language on the other side of the door, I couldn’t believe it,” he told Israeli President Isaac Herzog by phone from Soroka hospital, where he has been transferred and where he has been reunited with his relatives.

The rescued man is in “generally good health,” a hospital spokesman said. In the first videos and photos released by the authorities, he appears in good condition, although thinner than in photos before he was captured. “He has lost at least 20 kilograms,” said Faiz Sana, one of his nephews who visited him. The rescued man told a relative that he only ate bread, not daily, and did not see the sun during his captivity. When he is discharged, he will return to his home in a village near the city of Rahat in the Negev desert.

In one video he speaks by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After thanking him, he reminds him that “there are others waiting out there,” a reference to the rest of the hostages in Gaza (108, of whom between a third and half have already died) whose fate is currently being negotiated in Cairo.

Delegations from Israel and Hamas are trying to reach there, through mediators, a ceasefire agreement that would end, in stages, the war that has taken the lives of more than 40,000 Palestinians and devastated entire neighborhoods. In the absence of substantial progress in the negotiations, the mediators have recently decided to leave for last one of the most complex issues: the future of the Philadelphia corridor on the border with Egypt, and Netzarim, which cuts Gaza in two. For this reason, and facing the temptation of the government to focus on military means, the main Israeli forum that presses for the success of the negotiations has issued a statement to emphasize that the hostages “cannot wait for a miracle.” Like the prisoner Farhan Alqadi, because “military operations alone cannot free them all.”

In fact, he is only the eighth Israeli hostage (two of them also of Argentine nationality) to be rescued by the troops in almost 11 months of war, specifically in two surprise macro operations in February and June, with massive bombardments that left more than 400 dead, according to Gaza health officials. The army has also recovered about thirty bodies, the last six of which were recovered last week.

Most of the 251 hostages taken by Gaza fighters on 7 October were released through negotiations. More than 100 were exchanged in November for the release of Palestinian prisoners and the admission of more humanitarian aid, the only week without bombing since the invasion, dozens of deaths a day from Israeli bombing; an exacerbated humanitarian crisis that has led to diseases such as polio reappearing after 25 years; and a routine of mass population displacement. As Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Tuesday, the latest incident in Deir al Balah has made the aid work of the United Nations, which has its base of operations there, “extremely difficult”.

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