The Israeli army has recovered the bodies of two more hostages from Gaza, a married couple with U.S. citizenship who were slain on Oct. 7, 2023.
Gadi Haggai and Judith Weinstein Haggai were on their regular morning walk on their kibbutz, Nir Oz, when terrorists attacked on Oct. 7. More than a quarter of their community of 400 was slain or taken as hostages to Gaza.
Weinstein Haggai made an emergency call after the couple was ambushed but no one was able to reach them. Their children saw footage of their father’s body being dragged into Gaza. The Haggais’ deaths were confirmed based on Israeli intelligence in December 2023.
Haggai, 72 at the time of his death, was a chef and musician whose flute playing helped woo his wife when she volunteered on the kibbutz in the 1970s. Weinstein Haggai, who was 70, was born in New York and raised in Toronto before moving to Israel as a young adult, where she wrote poetry and taught English. The couple had four children and seven grandchildren.
“We welcome the closure that we have been granted and the return for burial of our loved ones, who went out for a walk on that Black Sabbath morning and never came back,” their family said in a statement on Thursday.
The retrieval, which Israeli officials said took place in an operation by the IDF and the Shin Bet security service based on information secured in interrogations, brings the number of hostages in Gaza to 56, of whom 20 are thought to be alive. The remaining hostages include 12 from Nir Oz and two who had U.S. citizenship: Itay Chen and Omer Neutra, both of whom were serving in the army on the day of the attack.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
