Doctor says health status of other hostages unknown, ‘we must have a deal now’

By Diana Bletter

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27 August 2024, 6:15 pm

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Reporter at The Times of Israel

Rescued hostage Farhad al-Qadi (center) reunites with family members at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on August 27, 2024. (Yossi Ifergan/GPO)

Prof. Hagai Levine, head of the medical and resilience team of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, says it’s “a ray of light” that hostage Farhan al-Qadi, 52, was rescued by IDF troops from a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today.

However, he adds, “we need to remember that we don’t know what the health condition of the other 108 hostages is, and clearly there is no possible way to rescue them all by military operations, so we must have a deal now to bring them back alive for rehabilitation, or for proper burial.”

Levine adds that for returning hostages, “after a few days, they start to realize what they’ve been through. This is a long recovery process.”