Judith Weinstein, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was murdered during Hamas’s October 7 terror attacks and the terrorist group is holding her body hostage in Gaza, representatives for the Nir Oz kibbutz said Thursday.
Weinstein and her husband, Gadi Haggai, were taken hostage on October 7. Last week the kibbutz announced Haggai, 73, had died in captivity.
The pair were abducted from Nir Oz on October 7 as they were out for a morning walk when the assault began. Weinstein called a kibbutz member for help and explained that she had been shot in the arm and that Haggai had been shot in the head. They had not been heard from since.
“We know that they were badly wounded. We know that [Weinstein] still had the phone with her to be able to call and ask for help and provide details. But ever since then, we lost all contact with them,” Ofri Haggai, the couple’s niece, said last month.
The couple, longtime members of Nir Oz, are survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
Weinstein was an English teacher who worked with children with special needs. She helped children manage anxiety stemming from rocket fire in the Gaza border area.
“She was a poet and an entrepreneur who loved to create and was dedicated to working for peace and friendship,” the people of Nir Oz said in a statement.
“Gadi was a man full of humor who knew how to make those around him laugh. A musician at heart, a gifted flautist, he played in the IDF Orchestra and was involved with music his whole life,” the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum said in a statement last week.
Hamas took more than 200 hostages on October 7, with 129 hostages remaining in Gaza as of December 22, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Israeli military believes that at least 21 of the hostages are dead.
Renana Eitan, the head of psychiatry at the Ichilov Tel Aviv Medical Center, recently told the Guardian that many of the hostages released from Hamas captivity in November are in need of intensive treatment for the trauma caused by their time held hostage in Haza. Eitan said the hostages experienced the worst abuse and trauma she had seen in her time as a psychiatrist.
Fourteen hostages were being treated at the center, including children who were drugged by Hamas and suffering from withdrawal. Other captives were subjected to or witnessed sexual abuse, while one woman was kept in a tiny cage and another was kept in complete darkness for days.
“I thought that I’d treated the most severe cases there were, but with these patients that came from captivity we couldn’t believe that degree of cruelty,” Eitan said. “Most of the hostages who came back went through very severe physical and mental abuse. . . . We know that they have a long way ahead of them.”