IDF recovers bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai, Judih Weinstein in Gaza operation
Dual US citizens were held in Khan Younis by Hamas-allied terror group that also kidnapped, murdered Bibas family; official says Shin Bet grilling of Gazan detainee led IDF to bodies
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency recovered the bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein from the southern Gaza Strip in an operation overnight, it was announced Thursday.
The two, a married couple who held US citizenship, were murdered during their morning walk near Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and their deaths were confirmed by the military in December of that year.
They had been held by the Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small terror group in the Strip that was also responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.
The IDF said the operation was carried out using “precise intelligence” from the IDF’s Hostages Headquarters unit, the Intelligence Directorate, and the Shin Bet.
The overnight operation in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis was enabled by intelligence obtained during a Shin Bet interrogation of a Palestinian terror operative who was detained in Gaza, an Israeli defense official told The Times of Israel.
“The intelligence that is obtained in Shin Bet interrogations is valuable and important, and helps the ground operation and missions like the one carried out overnight,” the official said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing the operation on Thursday, said: “We will not rest until we bring all of our hostages home — both the living and the dead.”
President Isaac Herzog called the recovery of the bodies “a moment of deep pain, but also one of solace and the resolution of uncertainty.” He said Israel “will continue to do everything in our power to bring our sisters and brothers back from hell – the living for healing and rehabilitation, and the fallen to be laid to rest in dignity. Every last one of them!”
Phone call records Weinstein’s plea for help
Haggai, 72, and Weinstein, 70, were on their morning walk near their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were murdered and abducted to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists.
Security camera footage from that morning showed the couple leaving the kibbutz.
In a chilling phone call to paramedics that morning, Weinstein described her husband’s head wound and urged the operator to send help, as some of the approximately 5,000 invaders rampaged through southern Israel.
“Parts of his brain are out of his… everything is covered with blood,” she told the operator, confirming that terrorists had shot at the couple. Asked if she was somewhere safe, she responded: “No, [I’m] outside, under a tree, next to the road.”
“They came on the road. There were lots of motorcycles and guns. They shot us. We were lying down and they shot us,” she recalled, clarifying that she, too, was shot in the hand and the head.
Haggai, a native of Kibbutz Ein HaShofet, was a retired chef and jazz musician who, having played music since childhood, served in the IDF orchestra for his military service and then lived in the US, where he took up the saxophone, according to the Haaretz daily.
Upon his return to Israel a number of years later, he met Weinstein, who had come from the US and volunteered at Ein HaShofet. The two of them played in a kibbutz jazz ensemble until they left the kibbutz in the late 1970s. In 1994, they and their four children moved to Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Weinstein, a teacher and New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, continued to write poetry into her retirement, with a particular love for haiku. She also tutored English, edited academic writing, practiced reiki therapy, and taught mindfulness classes, including through puppetry.
Couple’s son: ‘I am both relieved and anxious’
The couple’s son Ahl Haggai told the Ynet news site on Thursday he was caught in a swirl of emotions.
“This is a shocking moment,” he said. “I am both relieved and anxious. This isn’t simple, despite it easing things and removing something [weighing] on the heart. There was an uncertainty that has ended.”
Haggai said their return “shines a spotlight” on the 56 hostages remaining in Gaza and efforts to bring them home as well.
“This was really surprising and I’m thinking why did we deserve for our loved ones to return and not others,” he said.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the return of the bodies will help lessen some of the pain around the couple’s murder, while calling for the government to strike a deal to bring back all remaining hostages held in Gaza.
“The return of the Judih and Gadi is painful and heartbreaking, yet it also brings healing to our uncertainty” around their deaths, the group said in a statement.
“Their return reminds us all that it is the state’s duty to bring everyone home, so that we, the families, together with all the people of Israel, can begin the process of healing and recovery.”
The Forum added that “there is no need to wait another 608 agonizing days” for a hostage deal to clinch the return of the 56 people still held in Gaza, including the bodies of 33 believed to be dead.
“A grave is not a privilege,” the families said. “A grave is a basic human right, without which personal and national recovery is impossible.”
Kibbutz Nir Oz also issued a statement announcing its members’ deaths. Hamas terrorists entered all but six of over 200 homes in the small community and either murdered or kidnapped one of every four residents — 117 people out of some 400.
Netanyahu has not visited the kibbutz since the attack, despite repeated urgings from the community.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 56 hostages — 55 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, plus the body one a IDF soldier killed in 2014.
They include the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.
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