The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday said its security personnel have rescued another Israeli national who was taken hostage by Hamas members during the October 7 attack.
The hostage was identified as 52-year-old Qaid Farhan Alkadi.
According to reports, he was rescued from a Hamas tunnel in Gaza.
IDF posted on X: “Today, the IDF and ISA rescued the hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, aged 52, from Rahat, who was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organization into Gaza on October 7.”
“He is in a stable medical condition and is being transferred for medical checks at a hospital. His family has been updated with the details, and the IDF is accompanying them,” the forces said.
The IDF said its security forces will continue to operate with all means to bring home the hostages.
Israeli special forces, acting on intelligence, were combing a network of tunnels in southern Gaza when they found Al-Qadi, two Israeli military officials told CNN.
Al-Qadi is the eighth hostage to be rescued alive in Gaza by the Israeli military since the beginning of the war, in four separate operations – but he is the first to have been reclaimed alive from inside Hamas’ tunnel network underneath Gaza, the IDF told CNN.
“He was dead and is now brought back to life,” Al-Qadi’s brother, Juma’a, told CNN after Al-Qadi met family members at the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, where he is being cared for following his rescue. He added that his brother had not expected to come back alive.
More than 200 hostages were captured by Hamas during their October 7 attack, an episode which triggered a conflict with Israel.
The plight of Gaza’s people continues to worsen in the enclave where humanitarian operations are “ongoing where feasible” amid repeated evacuation orders from the Israeli military, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, warned on Tuesday.
In an update, OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke rejected any suggestion of stopping the lifesaving aid operation, despite the multiple challenges linked to the war and ongoing fighting, sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October.
“There’s been no decision to halt, there never has been, we’ve been there for 10 months, so [it is] ongoing where feasible. I want to remind you that only 11 per cent of the territory of the Gaza Strip is not under evacuation orders…so we’re trying to work with that number and keep the operation going.”
Gaza’s health sector remains barely functional compared to how it was before 7 October when Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel sparked the war. As of 20 August, WHO recorded 505 health attacks in the Strip, resulting in 752 people killed, 982 injured and 32 hospitals and 63 ambulances damaged.
