Hostages and Missing Persons Forum.
Yehudit Weiss’ body was returned to Israel, the IDF said in a statement.
CNN –
A 65-year-old Israeli woman who was kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7 was found dead near Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday.
The body of Yehudit Weiss, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, was found by Israeli soldiers in Gaza City and brought back to Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
The statement did not detail how or when she was killed, but said military, medical and rabbinical personnel identified the body and informed her family.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised press conference that Hamas killed Weiss. He did not provide further information about the exact cause of death.
“Unfortunately, Yehudit was murdered by the terrorists in Gaza and we did not reach them in time,” he said.
“The IDF extends its deepest condolences to the family,” the earlier IDF statement said. “Our national task is to locate the missing and bring those abducted home.”
Weiss was among more than 200 people taken hostage by Hamas during its Oct. 7 terror attack as its militants advanced into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people. Weiss’ husband Shmuel was among those killed.
The IDF said her body was recovered from a so-called “structure” near Al-Shifa Hospital, where the IDF on Wednesday launched what it called a “precise and targeted” operation against Hamas, which it said used the have hospital for military purposes.
Hamas and hospital officials have consistently rejected Israel’s claims that Hamas had set up a command center beneath the hospital.
The IDF also claimed in its statement that “military equipment was also found in the building where Yehudit was located, including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs.”
The Israeli military also said Thursday that it had found an “operational tunnel shaft” in the Shifa hospital complex, releasing a statement that included a photo and video purporting to show it.
CNN is unable to verify the claim.
Israel is under significant international pressure to prove its claims about Hamas’s infiltration of the hospital in order to justify some of its military decisions that could otherwise constitute a possible serious violation of international humanitarian law.
Kibbutz Be’eri lies just a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip and its liberal community has been a frequent target of Hamas rockets fired from the enclave – usually intercepted by Israeli defenses.
But the kibbutz became the scene of a massacre on October 7 when Hamas militants entered the compound and murdered more than 120 of its residents, including children, and kidnapped others.
The Hostages and Missing Person’s Families Forum, a group founded by the families of the Hamas kidnapped group, said Weiss was a 65-year-old grandmother.
This is a developing story and will be updated.