Rahat mayor says rescued hostage is in ‘good spirits’ after 10 months of ‘difficult conditions’

Rahat Mayor Talal al-Kernawi says he met with rescued hostage Farhan al-Qadi, describing him as being in good spirits and overjoyed to be home.

“He’s happy, he’s thanking everyone,” says al-Kernawi in an interview with Channel 12 news after meeting with the rescued hostage in the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.

“We’re all happy that Farhan is back, we can see the color coming back to his face, he’s finally seeing sun, seeing light,” he says of the hostage who was located by troops in an underground tunnel in Gaza more than 10 months after he was abducted by Hamas.

“We spoke about the joy and the happiness in the country” at his release, he says, noting that when they met, al-Qadi “hugged me and said congratulations that you won the election,” since he had been in captivity during the vote.

Al-Kernawi says al-Qadi is “in good spirits, happy, cheerful, smiling… he’s very skinny but he’s happy, and you can see the joy on his face.”

The mayor says he asked al-Qadi if he had seen any sign of the Ziyadne family, other hostages from the Bedouin town of Rahat, but “he didn’t know they were captives.”

The rescued hostage told al-Kernawi that he experienced “difficult conditions” during his 10.5 months of captivity, but told the mayor that “what’s important today is that I’m standing on my own two feet.”