Tanzanian agricultural student Joshua Mollel’s body held hostage by Hamas in Gaza returned for burial in his home country
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 as 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. Until yesterday, Joshua’s remains, and that of six other hostages, were 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.
Today, the remains of the latest hostage to be released by Hamas were identified as those of Joshua. Now the process begins of repatriating his body to the country of his birth, and bringing closure for his loved ones. While a blessing and a comfort, Joshua never lived to see his dreams realized, cut down by evil Hamas terrorists.
Arriving in Israel full of hope, leaving behind his parents and siblings, Joshua promised to return home 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 as an Israeli Jew who 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. Joshua’s body, which laid alongside Israeli Jews and even a former Thai worker somewhere in a Gazan tunnel or sandy pit, is 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 and as one of the last hostages to return from 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 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 Moslems 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.
Joshua’s 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.
Now that Joshua Mollel’s body has been released by Hamas, let us come together as we did with the honor and respect shown to Clemence Felix Mtenga. Please join the Genesis 123 Foundation to pay last respects to him, to comfort his family, and to express love and solidarity from Jerusalem and around the world to a remote village in Tanzania.
Jonathan Feldstein was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six. Throughout his life and career, he has become a respected bridge between Jews and Christians and serves as president of the Genesis 123 Foundation. He writes regularly on major Christian websites about Israel and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. He is host of the popular Inspiration from Zion podcast. He can be reached at [email protected].
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