A Hamas hostage kidnapped on October 7 has been rescued alive from a tunnel under Gaza during a ‘complex’ operation carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. Qaid Farhan Alkadi (pictured), 52, was in a stable condition and was transferred to a hospital for medical checks, the military said on Tuesday.

He 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 attacked on October 7. He has two wives and is the father of 11 children. 

The rescue was greeted with joy by Israelis, but was a stark reminder that more than 100 hostages are still held by Hamas despite international efforts to broker a cease-fire agreement. Israel’s Channel 12 showed Alkadi’s family members sprinting through the hospital where he was brought after they received the news.

In a video, Alkadi’s brother Hatem says: ‘I can’t explain these feelings. It’s better than being born again. God bless, we thank you to everyone. And we hope Farhan is good and healthy. We’re very happy. We’re very happy we’re getting this news.’

It came after Israeli hostage Noa Argamani (pictured), who was held by Hamas for 245 days, said last week that every time she went to sleep she thought it was ‘going to be my last night alive’. Hamas-led militants abducted around 250 people in the October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials who have not revealed how many of the dead were Hamas fighters. The IDF operation has displaced 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes and caused heavy destruction across the besieged territory.

There are still around 110 hostages still left unaccounted for, and about a third of them are believed to be dead. Most of the rest were released in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a cease-fire last November.

Israel has rescued a total of eight hostages, including in two operations that killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas has said several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar have spent months trying to negotiate an agreement in which the remaining hostages would be freed in exchange for a lasting cease-fire. Those talks are ongoing in Egypt this week, but there has been no sign of any breakthrough.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced intense criticism from families of the hostages and much of the Israeli public for not yet reaching a deal with Hamas to bring them home.

Hamas hopes to trade the hostages for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.