Israel’s military on Tuesday confirmed the death of a soldier held captive in Gaza after Hamas issued a video of her alive followed by images of what the Palestinian faction said was her body after she was killed in an Israeli strike.
It appeared to be the first time Israel has confirmed such a claim by Hamas, which in the past has said that dozens of hostages from its October 7 attack on Israeli border villages and army bases had died or were missing due to the ensuing Gaza war.
In the Hamas video, disseminated on social media on Monday, Noa Marciano identified herself on camera and said she had been held in Gaza for four days — indicating it was taped on October 11.
The video then shows still pictures of a young woman of similar appearance lying, looking sallow and with her eyes closed, on a blood-stained bedsheet. A close-up image shows a bloody head wound.
A caption said Marciano, 19, was killed “in an air strike by the Zionist enemy” last Thursday. The military statement did not comment on the circumstances of Marciano’s death other than to describe her as an “abductee fatality in the hands of a terrorist organisation”.
Canadian activist dead
Vivian Silver, a Canadian-born Israeli activist who devoted her life to seeking peace with the Palestinians, was confirmed killed in Hamas’ October 7 incursion into Israel.
For 38 days, Silver, who had moved to Israel in the 1970s and made her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, had been believed to be among the nearly 240 hostages held in the Gaza Strip. But identification of some of the most badly burned remains has gone slowly, and her family was notified of her death on Monday.
Silver was a dominant figure in several groups that promoted peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as a prominent Israeli human rights group.
“On the one hand, she was small and fragile. Very sensitive,” her son Yonatan Zeigen told Israel Radio on Tuesday.
“On the other hand, she was a force of nature. She had a giant spirit. She was very assertive. She had very strong core beliefs about the world and life.”
