Former Bedouin-Israeli hostage al-Qadi says Hamas abducted him when he refused to reveal location of Jews

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Farhan al-Qadi, an Arab-Israeli citizen from a Bedouin community, was one of 251 people kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 during the terror group's surprise invasion of southern Israel, which resulted in the massacre of 1,200 men, women and children.

On Aug. 27, Al-Qadi was rescued by the Israel Defense Forces in a tunnel in southern Gaza after surviving over 10 months in Hamas captivity.

Al-Qadi had been working close to Kibbutz Magen, a rural Israeli community near the Gaza border, on the morning of the Hamas attack. He recalled his interaction with three Hamas terrorists in a recent interview with Israel's Channel 12 News.

“I went outside, and I saw 100 meters from me where three Hamas terrorists were shooting in my direction and running toward me,” al-Qadi said. Once the Hamas operatives were convinced he was a Muslim, the terrorists demanded he help them "find Jews."

“Take us in your car to wherever we can find Jews,” the terrorists told him. However, al-Qadi emphasized that he refused and was prepared to risk his life.

“I was prepared to die rather than point them to a Jew, not even to a cat. The whole moshav [village] are good friends of mine,” al-Qadi recalled.

The terrorists responded by shooting al-Qadi in the leg and then knocking him to the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

Because of the intense pain in his leg, he was eventually unable to walk. One of the terrorists brought him to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza. At the hospital, al-Qadi said he had to climb up the stairs because of his injury. “Look, here’s our dog walking,” the terrorists said mockingly.

He recalled that many regular Gazans were openly celebrating the Hamas attack.

“There were a lot of people and you could see their joy; they felt like they’d won,” he said. Two local doctors operated on him without any anesthetics while he was interrogated.

“I told that the pain in my soul was worse than the pain in my leg. I was thinking of my family and how they wouldn’t have Farhan anymore,” al-Qadi recalled.

Al-Qadi's rescue by Israeli forces resulted in mixed reactions in the Muslim Arab world. Some voices denied that Hamas had taken him hostage and insinuated that the 52-year-old Arab Israeli was an Israeli soldier abducted during the fighting between IDF and Hamas.

However, there were also positive reactions from the Arab world.

“Congratulations to humanity, Israel, and all Muslim Arabs,” Emirati analyst Amjad Taha wrote.

“Hamas is the ISIS of Gaza and an enemy of humanity, not just the Jews. Oh, by the way, Israel, the so-called apartheid Jewish state, just rescued and saved an Arab Muslim. Read that last line again and try to grasp the depth of the deception you live in,” Taha added.

Dozens of Bedouin Israelis were murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Al-Qadi is just one of several Arab Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In March, Ali Ziadna, a brother of an Arab Israeli hostage, confronted the Palestinian Authority UN envoy Riyad Mansour at the United Nations. "Why did they kidnap my family?" Ziadna asked Mansour. "What crime did they commit that Hamas kidnapped them? They have been in the tunnels for 5 months, and for what? On what basis?”