The Nir Oz kibbutz on the edge of Gaza announced Thursday that an Israeli-Canadian hostage had died when she was kidnapped on October 7 during the Hamas attack, six days after the announcement of the death of her husband in similar circumstances .
Judith Weinstein Haggai “was injured during the October 7 massacre, and it has now been authorized to publish that she was killed that Saturday,” having succumbed to her injuries, the kibbutz said in a statement.
Aged 70, she was presented as the oldest woman held hostage in the Gaza Strip.
According to the kibbutz, she was a “mother of four children and grandmother of seven grandchildren” and worked as an “English teacher for children with special educational needs or those with attention and concentration problems.”
The Nir Oz kibbutz announced Wednesday the death of her husband Gadi Haggai, 73, also a hostage in Gaza, in the same circumstances. US President Joe Biden said he was “heartbroken by the news”.
The couple’s remains are still in the Gaza Strip, according to the kibbutz.
“I want to believe that she is still alive, but […] I’m not sure,” Judith Weinstein Haggai’s son, Ahl Haggai, said in an interview with AFP this month.
Joe Biden said he continued “to pray” that she would be in good health and would return home safe and sound.
Some 250 people were taken hostage during the bloody Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which left around 1,140 dead, according to an AFP count based on the latest official figures. To date, 129 are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
A truce, in place from November 24 to December 1, allowed the release of 105 hostages in Gaza, including 80 in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
At least 21,320 people — mostly women, children and adolescents — have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli army’s offensive, according to the ruling Hamas authorities.