Her husband died in the October 7 attack, leaving behind five children. The Israeli military announced on Thursday that it had discovered the body of a hostage kidnapped by Hamas during the bloody assault on Israel near Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital and murdered, it said by the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The woman's body, abducted from Kibbutz Beeri, "was extracted by IDF troops from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip and transferred to Israeli territory," an army statement said. The victim was identified by the military as Yehudit Weiss. "In the structure where Yehudit was staying, military equipment, including Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers, were also found," the army added.
Breast cancer
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the hostage had been "murdered by terrorists in the Gaza Strip." Hamas has claimed for weeks that dozens of hostages have been killed by the Israeli army during its intense bombardment of the territory. A statement from the Israeli hostages' family forum said the victim had been battling breast cancer for three months. Her husband was killed on 7 October. The couple had five children, all of whom survived.
Yehudit Weiss was kidnapped on October 7 during the Hamas attack, the most violent in Israel's history since 1948, in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage. In retaliation, Israel declared a war to "annihilate" Hamas, relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian Islamist movement seized power in 2007. At least 11,500 people were killed, according to the Hamas government.
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Earlier on Thursday, the army announced that "hostage-related images" had been found on computers seized from Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, which has been under attack for two days. Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, is presented by Israel as a strategic and military center for Hamas, a claim denied by the Islamist movement that seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
The Israeli army, which entered the hospital on Wednesday, said it had been searching it since then in a "targeted" and "complex" operation, carried out "in stages", while, according to the UN, about 2,300 people - patients, medical workers and displaced people - are still inside. On 30 October, the Israeli army announced that it had freed a female soldier kidnapped by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.