"He's Back With Us, Alive!"

Rescued hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi arrives via IDF helicopter to Soroka Medical center.  (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

"He told about a very brutal captivity, he hardly saw the sun for eight months. He would check if his eyes were functioning."

"He said that one of the abductees was with him for two months and died next to him."

Ata Abu Medigm, former mayor of Rahat

"[Qaid Farhan Alkadi] lost a lot of weight. [He ate] mainly bread [in captivity and] not every day."

"He is now on his feet and talking about the matter. He was constantly thinking about the family and never stopped believing that he [would get] out of there."

"We don't know how he survived, but he survived and he's alive, and that's the most important thing."

Alkadi relative

Freed Israeli hostage Kaid Alkadi at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva in southern Israel on Aug. 27, 2024. — Israeli Government Press Office

After 326 agonizing days of imprisonment by Hamas operatives in Gaza, 52-year-old Qaid Farhan Alkadi was finally rescued this week by Israeli forces. After hospitalization, his attending doctor in Beersheba declared  him to be abnormally thin from weight loss, but in generally good physical condition. He was released to the waiting arms of his extended family. Prior photographs of the Bedouin Muslim Israeli from Rahat show a robust, well-built man whereas the photos latterly taken after his release from Gaza are those of a gaunt man with a shrunken musculature.

 

Unsurprising, given the circumstances in which he was kept prisoner, with food enough to keep him alive, incarcerated in dimly-lit-to-dark tunnels, where the familiarity of the sun in a normal atmosphere became a dim memory. "He spoke about the darkness, not being able to see. But thank God, he's back with us, alive -- it made us all rejoice", said his cousin Fayez al-Sana after visiting the father of eleven children in hospital before his discharge.

 

"He was dead and is now brought back to life. It was all tears. Tears of Joy. What matters is that we saw him", added Alkadi's brother Juma, who explained that his brother had been shot in the leg when he was abducted from the farming kibbutz on the Gaza border on October 7, where he was employed as a security guard. Later in Gaza, his wound was operated on without the benefit of anesthesia. And that too would be a memorable experience.

 

The brother of freed Israeli hostage Kaid Alkadi shows a mobile phone picture of him with another brother — Menahem KAHANA

 

The nation of Israel cheered at this man's survival and rescue and return to Israel, his family, his town and his Bedouin clan. Many other Israelis are being held in the vast tunnel network that exists under Gaza. His rescue from the tunnel system represents the first time an Israeli was brought out of the tunnels on a rescue mission alive.

It was explained by Israeli authorities that, acting on intelligence, special forces were combing tunnels when Alkadi was discovered alone in a room about 23 metres underground, his guards having been dispersed at the arrival of the Israelis. Led by Shayetet 13 (Israeli counterpart to the U.S. Navy SEALs), it was initially thought that they were confronting a Hamas operative. The team included Yahalom members, a special unit of the combat Engineering Corps.

They had entered the tunnel, determined that Alkadi was alone, called out to him, and he responded: "It's me, Farhan, don't shoot". He was weak and obviously malnourished and in that condition was unable to clamber out of the tunnel on his own. He had been kept in a complex of several tunnels' intersection. When he was found, he was in a side room, leading the Israeli forces to fear that what faced them could represent a Hamas entrapment.

With his rescue, the number of hostages that remain as captive by Hamas is estimated at 108 in Gaza. That number is broken down to represent 104 of the 251 hostages Hamas operatives and civilian Palestinians had originally gathered and taken to Gaza on October 7. Of the total, some 34 are no longer alive, according to the Israeli military assessment.

Qaid Farhan Alkaldi (C), who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, is greeted as he returns to the unrecognized Bedouin village of Carcur, near the city of Rahat, after being rescued by Israeli forces from a tunnel in southern Gaza, on Aug. 28, 2024, in Rahat, Israel. — Amir Levy/Getty Images

"The assessment in Israel is that, at least in some cases, Hamas lost contact with the abductees and ... is now trying to understand what happened to them."

Israeli Channel 12 report