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Israel Rescued a Bedouin Hostage; the Media Turned It Against Israel

Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a Bedouin Israeli hostage who was kidnapped in the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack, uses his phone as he is reunited with loved ones after being rescued from Gaza by Israeli forces, at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba. Photo: Courtesy of the Government Press Office/Yossi Ifergan/Handout via REUTERS

Israeli Bedouin Arab Qaid Farhan al-Qadi was rescued by the Israel Defense Forces from a Hamas tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

He was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, and held in captivity for nearly 350 days. In the face of this miraculous news, however, the mainstream media were quick to turn the event into a political narrative that tries to slander Israel.

Here are some of the ones that HonestReporting caught this week.

How Hamas Treats Arab People and the Bedouin Community

On October 7, Bedouins and other minority groups suffered at the hands of Hamas terrorists and their followers.

Hamas says it targets Jews, but the reality is that it targets people of every religion — Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, or any other people inside Israel.

Despite the fact that al-Qadi is a devout Muslim himself, he was still brutally taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and kept as a hostage in horrific conditions for 11 months in Gaza.

He was one of five other Muslims taken hostage on that day, and two are still in captivity. There is also one additional Israeli Bedouin civilian, Hisham al-Sayed, who has been infamously held hostage by Hamas for a decade.

Despite the families’ pleas for Hamas to send them home in good faith as fellow Muslims, the response was silence.

Therefore, The New York Times trying to convince readers or make assumptions about “specific” targets of Hamas otherwise is completely unethical:

Farhan al-Qadi is not just a Bedouin Arab. He’s an Israeli citizen.

Say it, @BBCNews — Farhan al-Qadi is an *Israeli* Bedouin Arab.https://t.co/TgE8UkrlB7 pic.twitter.com/PNiFpXvRfx

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 27, 2024

How Israel Treats the Bedouin Community 

Qaid Farhan al-Qadi is a Bedouin with Israeli citizenship. To deny this fact is to create a false narrative that suggests Bedouins do not have rights in Israel.

Indeed, many of them are citizens and have full rights. While the issues between the Bedouin community of the Negev and the Israeli government are complicated, that does not take away from their rights as citizens. Therefore, they should be referred to as such.

Unfortunately, biased media like the BBC seem to want readers to believe that Israel is an apartheid state.

Farhan al-Qadi is not just a Bedouin Arab. He’s an Israeli citizen.

Say it, @BBCNews — Farhan al-Qadi is an *Israeli* Bedouin Arab.https://t.co/TgE8UkrlB7 pic.twitter.com/PNiFpXvRfx

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 27, 2024

Bedouins are not “forced” to live on “reservations”

Bedouins are “forced to live in reservations” according to @CNN.

Bedouins are not Native Americans and the Negev is not a reservation.

Try reporting objectively instead of imposing your own cultural framing of the story. https://t.co/3RFNvkVIO8

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 28, 2024

The issue here is that a different country’s cultural framing, namely the United States, with its own separate history, is being applied to the Bedouins in Israel. Whenever this happens, it not only takes away from the Native Americans, a different group’s struggle or story, but it gives readers misleading context to the Bedouins’ story.

As is stated in the tweet above, Bedouins in Israel are not Native Americans and their villages in the Negev are not reservations. They are semi-nomadic, meaning they can move around, and don’t all live in cities and towns as Westerners are accustomed to. Rather, they pitch up structures wherever desired. So they are not “forced” to live anywhere. They can also, as all Israeli citizens are entitled to do, buy or rent an apartment in Tel Aviv if they so wish.

What is worse, is that CNN also misquoted the one-sided Minority Rights Group article that it relied on its information from. Changing past tense to present tense is a distortion of the truth and reality to appease an agenda. It also delegitimizes a news publication’s journalistic integrity to do such a thing.

See a more extensive explanation of the Bedouin community in Israel on Jewish Virtual Library. And correct the facts when you see the truth about Israel’s Arab and Bedouin community distorted.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Israel Rescued a Bedouin Hostage; the Media Turned It Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Saudi Arabia Rejects Israel PM Netanyahu’s Remarks on Displacing Palestinians

US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk in the midst of a joint news conference in the White House in Washington, US, Jan. 28, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Saudi Arabia affirmed its categorical rejection of remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about displacing Palestinians from their land, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Israeli officials have suggested the establishment of a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. Netanyahu appeared to be joking on Thursday when he responded to an interviewer on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 who mistakenly said “Saudi state” instead of “Palestinian state,” before correcting himself.

While the Saudi statement mentioned Netanyahu’s name, it did not directly refer to the comments about establishing a Palestinian state in Saudi territory.

Egypt and Jordan also condemned the Israeli suggestions, with Cairo deeming the idea as a “direct infringement of Saudi sovereignty.”

The kingdom said it valued “brotherly” states’ rejection of Netanyahu’s remarks.

“This occupying extremist mindset does not comprehend what the Palestinian territory means for the brotherly people of Palestine and its conscientious, historical and legal association with that land,” it said.

Discussions of the fate of Palestinians in Gaza has been upended by Tuesday’s shock proposal from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would “take over the Gaza Strip” from Israel and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.

Arab states have roundly condemned Trump’s comments, which came during a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza war that Israel has been waging against the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the narrow strip.

Trump has said Saudi Arabia was not demanding a Palestinian state as a condition for normalizing ties with Israel. But Riyadh rebuffed his statements, saying it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.

The post Saudi Arabia Rejects Israel PM Netanyahu’s Remarks on Displacing Palestinians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Egypt to Host Emergency Arab Summit on 27 February to Discuss ‘Serious’ Palestinian Developments

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on 27 February to discuss what it described as “serious” developments for Palestinians, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday.

The summit comes amid regional and global condemnation of US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “take over the Gaza Strip” from Israel and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.

The post Egypt to Host Emergency Arab Summit on 27 February to Discuss ‘Serious’ Palestinian Developments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Thai Nationals Held Captive by Hamas in Gaza Return Home

Relatives hug a released Thai hostage, who was kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas and held in Gaza, as the hostages arrive in Thailand following their release, at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, in Samut Prakan, Thailand, February 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

When Surasak Rumnao, 31, left his home in Thailand’s rural Udon Thani province three years ago to go across the world to the southern Israeli town of Yesha for agriculture work, his family never imagined they would lose touch with him for over a year when he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in October 2023.

He and four others were reunited with their families this weekend after their release from captivity in Gaza.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people, including Israelis and foreign nationals, in their October 2023 attack on Israel.

During the attack, Hamas terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Later that year, the first group of Thai hostages was returned.

Surasak’s mother, Khammee Rumnao, was relieved that her son was not mistreated and has returned to his home, about 620 km(385 miles) northeast of the capital, Bangkok.

“He mainly got to eat bread, he was looked after well and was fed all three meals (each day). He got to shower, he was looked after well,” Khammee said, and that he ate whatever his captors had.

Her son does not plan to go back and wants to use the knowledge he gained in his agricultural work in Israel at their home, she said.

His grandparents and other relatives came to their home to welcome him home.

His stepfather, Janda Prachanan, was elated.

“I couldn’t find the words to describe how happy I am, that my son is safe and finally home,” he said.

Earlier on Sunday, the other returnees, dressed in winter jackets, were met with tears of joy from their families who were waiting for their arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.

“We are all deeply touched to come back to our birthplace … to be standing here,” said Pongsak Thaenna, one of the returnees said. “I don’t know what else to say, we are all truly thankful.”

Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, who met the hostages in Israel after their release last week, expressed relief.

“This is emotional … to come back to the embrace of their families,” he said. “We never gave up and this was the fruit of that.”

Before the conflict, approximately 30,000 Thai laborers worked in Israel’s agriculture sector, making them one of the largest migrant worker groups in the country. Nearly 9,000 Thais were repatriated following the October 7 attacks.

The workers primarily come from Thailand’s northeastern region, an area comprising villages and farming communities that is among the poorest in the country.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said a Thai national is still believed to be held captive by Hamas.

“We still have hope and continue to work to bring them back,” Maris said, adding that this includes the bodies of two deceased Thai nationals.

The post Thai Nationals Held Captive by Hamas in Gaza Return Home first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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