Hamas holding body of American-Israeli woman
Judith Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gad were reportedly wounded during the 7 October attack on Israel.
Bryan R. Smith / AFP/File
Daily TribuneJudith Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gad were reportedly wounded during the 7 October attack on Israel.
Bryan R. Smith / AFP/File
An American-Israeli woman seized in the 7 October Hamas attack was killed on the same day and her body remains in the Gaza Strip, her kibbutz community said on Thursday.
Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, had been thought to be the oldest woman among the hostages still held in Gaza by the Palestinian terrorist group.
Her kibbutz of Nir Oz said that Haggai was "murdered in the massacre," and that her body remains in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Thursday's announcement by the community follows confirmation on 23 December that her husband, Gad Haggai, was also killed on 7 October.
"The bodies of both are still in the custody of Hamas," the community said, without elaborating.
The couple were among some 250 people taken hostage from Israeli border communities and military posts.
More than 100 of those abducted have since been freed, many exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel says 129 captives are still missing in Gaza, including 23 believed to have been killed.
Three hostages were mistakenly shot dead by soldiers in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
"There are no words to describe the pain of losing our parents and grandparents to the massacre that took place on our kibbutz," the family of Haggai said in a statement.
"We pray that their bodies… will be soon returned to us, and that their murders are a reminder for leaders everywhere to bring the hostages home now before it is too late."
Ahl Haggai, the couple's son, has said that in a final phone call on 7 October, his mother had told a paramedic that she and her husband had both been wounded.
"The only evidence we have… is a video of my dad on the back of a truck, laying down injured," he told Agence France-Presse earlier this month.
"She's nowhere to be found," he said, with only his mother's glasses recovered from the kibbutz.