US-citizen Judih Weinstein, 70: Killed alongside husband during a morning walk
Kibbutz Nir Oz residents Weinstein and husband Gadi Haggai were shot on Oct. 7; he was declared dead on Dec. 22 and she on Dec. 28
On December 28, Kibbutz Nir Oz confirmed the death of Judih Weinstein, 70. She and her husband Gadi Haggai were both killed on October 7 and their bodies are still held hostage to Gaza. This is what we know about the events of October 7 and its aftermath:
Judih Weinstein and her husband, Gadi Haggai, were on their morning walk when gunfire erupted and missiles streaked across the sky. Taking cover in a field, they could hear a recorded voice from an alert system for their Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel.
“What did she say?” Weinstein, 70, asked in Hebrew as she captured the scene on video.
“Red alert,” her 73-year-old husband said.
Weinstein shared the 40-second video clip in a group chat on October 7, when Hamas invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz during its terror onslaught. That was their last contact with their family.
Their family used the video to pinpoint the couple’s last known location and shared it with the Israeli army, but a search came up empty. Their fate remained a mystery to their four grown children, but Gadi was declared dead on December 22.
In early October, daughter Iris Weinstein Haggai was relentlessly looking for answers from her home in Singapore. The family had heard ominous news from a paramedic, who said Weinstein had called for medical help.
“She said they were shot by terrorists on a motorcycle and that my dad was wounded really bad,” said Weinstein Haggai, 38. “Paramedics tried to send her an ambulance. The ambulance got hit by a rocket.”
The paramedic lost contact with Weinstein, leaving her family grappling with worst-case scenarios, which came partially true with the news of Gadi’s death.
Haggai was a retired chef and jazz musician. Weinstein, a New York native, was a retired teacher. Both pacifists, they raised their children at the kibbutz, where everybody knows their neighbors.
