Israel Says It Has Rescued a Hostage

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." It did not provide further details, reports the AP. The 52-year-old 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.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were fighters. It 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 ceasefire 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.

(More Israel-Hamas war stories.)