The freed hostage was reportedly kept in complete darkness during his captivity and showered once a month
Two weeks before IDF troops arrived to rescue Farhan al-Qadi from the Gaza tunnels where he had been held for most of his 10-and-a-half months of captivity, the terrorist agents assigned to guard him fled, Hebrew media reported Wednesday, as new details about his time as a hostage emerged.
According to reports, al-Qadi’s captors left him in an underground room with only bread for food after training exercises by the IDF’s Combat Engineer Corps were heard nearby. Before leaving, Hamas operatives planted explosives in the surrounding tunnels, to ensure that he would not escape alive if he tried to flee.
When IDF troops entered the tunnels a few days later, al-Qadi was asked to identify himself and, according to the Kan public broadcaster, he was able to inform the IDF which parts of the surrounding tunnel system were booby-trapped.
He was rescued Tuesday as troops searched a network of tunnels in southern Gaza for hostages, the Israeli military said. He had been abducted Oct. 7 from Kibbutz Magen, near the Gaza border, where he worked as a security guard at a packaging plant.
In testimony obtained by Channel 12, the 52-year-old father of 11 said he was kept in total darkness in the tunnels for most of his captivity.
At the beginning of his captivity, al-Qadi said he was held in an apartment above ground with several other hostages, but was soon moved underground.
Freed hostage Farhan al-Qadi, right, hugs a sympathizer upon arriving at his home in the Bedouin village of Khirbet Karkur, near Rahat, southern Israel, August 28, 2024. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
“After about two months, the terrorists took me into a tunnel,” he told Channel 12. “I was alone there, with only the terrorists around me. I didn’t know the difference between day and night.”
“The terrorists were masked and gave me food, mostly slices of bread. There was very little food,” he said. “It was dark and I was covering my eyes with my hands to make sure I could still see, it was so dark.”
He was allowed to shower once a month, he said.
Al-Qadi’s brother, Jamal, was quoted by Channel 12 news earlier Wednesday as saying that the terrorists who kidnapped al-Qadi shot him in the leg when he refused to tell them where the Jews were.
The channel said that in Gaza, al-Qadi’s wound was sutured with a needle and thread, without any anesthesia.
Former Rahat mayor Ata Abu Madighem told Channel 12 on Tuesday that al-Qadi witnessed the death of another hostage with whom he had been held for two months at the beginning of his captivity, before being transferred into hiding. The report could not be immediately verified and there was no comment from the Israel Defense Forces or the Hostage Families Forum.
“They treated him like an Israeli in every way,” Abu Madighem said, adding that al-Qadi “barely saw the sun” while he was a hostage.
An estimated 104 of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 people confirmed dead by the Israeli military. The shock assault saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a week-long truce in late November, and four hostages had been freed before that. Eight hostages were rescued alive by troops, and the bodies of 30 hostages were also recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the army as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014.
