Israel-Hamas war latest: Body of Israeli hostage found near Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital

The body of an Israeli mother-of-five taken hostage by Hamas has been recovered by the Israel Defence Force from a building near the Al Shifa hospital.

Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old pensioner with breast cancer, was abducted by Hamas from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 by terrorists who also murdered her husband, Shmulik Weiss.

Yehudit Weiss was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from Kibbutz Be'eri . Photo / Family handout

“Following an identification process that was conducted by military medical and rabbinate personnel, together with the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Israel Police, today IDF and Israel Police representatives informed the family of Yehudit Weiss ... that she has been declared dead,” the IDF said in a statement.

It added: “In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found.”

The date and cause of Weiss’s death were not disclosed.

Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is crowded into southern Gaza, including hundreds of thousands who heeded Israel’s calls to evacuate to the north to get out of the way of its ground offensive. If the assault moves into the south, it is not clear where they would go, as Egypt refuses to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.

The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by Hamas’ October 7 attack into southern Israel in which the militants killed more than 1200 people, mostly civilians, and captured some 240 men, women and children. Weiss, the woman whose body was found Thursday, is the third hostage confirmed dead, while four others have been freed and one rescued.

More than 11,470 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2700 have been reported missing, believed buried under rubble. The official count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths, and Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.

- With AP