Former Rahat mayor Ata Abu Madighem said that Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, the former hostage who was rescued from Gaza on Tuesday, told him that he had been held together with another hostage who died in captivity.
"He told me about the difficult life he went through, a cruel and difficult captivity, he hardly saw the sun for close to ten months, he hardly saw the light. He talks about a very cruel captivity, he was treated as a pure Israeli, not as a Bedouin or an Arab," Madighem told Kan News.
"Farhan told about a friend of his who was in captivity with him, a Jew who after two months, I think in December 2023, died next to him. It broke his heart," he said.
Galei Tzahal military correspondent Doron Kadosh reported that IDF forces found Farhan al-Qadi in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip by chance and the operation to rescue him was not planned.
The report added, citing two security forces, that Al-Qadi escaped his captors on his own and reached IDF forces who found and rescued him from the tunnel. The exact circumstances of the escape are still unknown, his captors were apparently eliminated or fled.