Tanzanian Agricultural Student Joshua Mollel’s Body Still Held Hostage by Hamas in Gaza

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In the early morning of October 7, 2023, as rockets streaked across the sky and gunfire shattered the quiet of southern Israel, a young man from Tanzania pedaled his bicycle along a dusty road near Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Joshua Loitu Mollel, 21, had arrived in Israel only 19 days earlier, pursuing a personal dream and to be part of the Biblical prophecy of Ezekiel 36:8, witnessing and learning from the tremendous agricultural innovation that has made Israel such a beacon of agricultural prowess to developing nations of the world, miraculously making the desert bloom. “And you, the mountains of Israel, will produce your branches, and you will bear your fruit for My people Israel because they are about to come.”

Joshua was a devout Christian, embodying the quiet resilience of his faith—humble, hardworking, and hopeful. He saw the opportunities in Israel as an answer to personal prayer and a light unto the nations, planning to glean experience to bring back to and enrich his impoverished village. But that morning, Hamas terrorists stormed Israel’s border, and Joshua’s life was cut short in a frenzy of inhuman atrocities. Joshua was confirmed killed, his body dragged into Gaza and held captive ever since.

In the past week, the remains of four other hostages who were killed on October 7 or murdered in captivity were returned to Israel. But Joshua’s remains, and that of six other hostages, are still being held by Hamas terrorists, a bargaining chip in Hamas’s cruel calculus, a poignant reminder of how far their extremist Islamic hatred extends and impacts Jews and Christians together, worldwide.

Arriving in Israel full of hope, leaving behind his parents and siblings, Joshua promised to return with skills to combat drought and poverty and make agriculture in Tanzania blossom. Joshua’s faith sustained him; he attended church, prayed, and wrote home about the “miracle” of irrigation systems that turned desert into bounty. Yet, on that fateful day, his innocence made him a target. Albeit not to be confused with an Israeli Jew whom Hamas vows to annihilate, eyewitness accounts describe him begging for mercy in broken English as terrorists beat him, his cries drowned out by the chaos. To Hamas, he was a non-Muslim intruder, an infidel. Love and mercy are not in their vocabulary.

Joshua Mollel is not the only African or Tanzanian to have been murdered amid the Hamas slaughter that day and taken into captivity. In November 2023, the body of Clemence Felix Mtenga was found by Israeli soldiers, brought to Israel with all the love and respect afforded to all hostages who have been recovered, and repatriated to Tanzania for burial. The Genesis 123 Foundation spearheaded an effort to pay last respects all the way to the Kilimanjaro region, in which Mtenga was buried, and to comfort his family among the mourners of Zion and Israel. (Follow the video testimony of that powerful project HERE.)

Underscoring the common bond and that the victims of Islamic terror know no borders, President Isaac Herzog told a delegation of African Christian leaders in October 2025, “Hamas’s refusal to return Joshua’s body is a desecration, a continuation of the barbarism that has haunted my people for generations.”

Joshua’s murder reveals a broader, unifying threat and urgent call for solidarity: the scourge of Islamic terrorism that preys on Christians with equal ferocity. In sub-Saharan Africa, where Joshua’s story resonates deeply, radical Islamist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria have razed Christian villages, slaughtering tens of thousands, sacrifices to their Islamic caliphate. In Cameroon, Fulani militants affiliated with ISIS target Christian farmers, forcing conversions or death. These atrocities, spotlighted recently by U.S. political figures decrying “Islamic terrorists committing horrible atrocities,” parallel the October 7 massacre, where Hamas invoked jihad to justify beheading babies and abducting grandmothers.

The common thread is ideological: a radical interpretation of Islam that views Jews as eternal enemies and Christians as apostates, unworthy of the protection afforded “People of the Book.” From the 1929 Hebron massacre, where Arab rioters killed 67 Jews chanting “Slaughter the Jews,” to ISIS’s 2014 genocide of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis, the playbook remains unchanged—intimidation, expulsion, extermination. Somewhere in a Gazan tunnel or sandy pit today, Joshua’s body lies alongside Israeli Jews and even a former Thai worker, a stark symbol of this convergence. As part of God’s covenantal promise, which is so intricately linked to the Land and people of Israel, as one of the remaining eight hostages in Gaza, the simple truth is that Jews and Christians face a common enemy and threat under Sharia’s heel.

This shared peril forges an imperative for solidarity. Visiting Israel and the land from which his son’s lifeless body was taken hostage, Joshua’s father, Elias, didn’t seek vengeance; he sought justice and a proper burial under Tanzanian skies. His plea transcends borders: return the body, honor the dead, dismantle the networks of hate.

This is a message that’s especially urgent today as Islamists hijack western countries, can be embraced and elected to the highest offices in the biggest cities of the world, and threaten Judeo-Christian values. In Tanzania, one hopes that the country divided between Christians and Muslims will embrace the memory of Clemence Felix Mtenga and Joshua Mollel, and reject any hint of Islamic extremism there as well.

Whether in an African village, western Europe, or New York City, together we must counter Islamic terrorism’s hateful divide-and-conquer strategy, fostering alliances that starve extremists of their oxygen—fear and isolation.

As winter’s rainy season approaches, with Joshua’s remains still unreturned, his story calls on the world and people of conscience everywhere to see beyond narrow tribal lines: a Christian from Tanzania, massacred in the Jewish homeland, victim of a death cult of hatred that knows no borders. Our mandate must be to stand together – Jews and Christians – to confront our common enemy and honor the God of Israel.

With prayers that Joshua Mollel’s body will be released by Hamas, join the Genesis 123 Foundation to pay last respects to him, to comfort his family, and to express solidarity from Jerusalem and around the world to a remote village in Tanzania.

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/pawel.gaul

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of the Salem Web Network.

Jonathan Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation (www,genesis123.co) whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians and Christians with Israel. He was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six, and grandfather of four (so far). 

 Two sons and a son in law are currently serving in the IDF and have been involved in combat in Gaza and Lebanon since the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel. 

 Jonathan is a leader working with and among Christian supporters of Israel, and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel through his work, writing, and as host of the Inspiration from Zion podcast. Since the war began, he has authored more than 150 articles, and participated in a similar number of interviews, briefings, prayer events, and more. 

 Jonathan is working with Christian leaders all over the world to realize a true peace in Gaza, details of which can be found at www.SolutionforPeaceinGaza.com. 

 In 2023 he published the highly acclaimed book, Israel the Miracle (www.israelthemiracle.com), which makes a great gift for Chanukah and Christmas, and year round.