Yehudit Waiss, 65, was murdered in Gaza, her body recovered by IDF
Kibbutz Be’eri-based Yehudit and husband Shmulik stopped responding to family texts after 10:15 a.m. on October 7
Yehudit Waiss, 65, was captured and taken to Gaza, and her body was recovered by the IDF on November 16 and brought back to Israel. The IDF said that Yehudit was murdered by Hamas in Gaza. This is the story of her capture and its aftermath:
Yehudit Waiss, 65, hasn’t been heard from since 10:15 a.m. on October 7, when she and her husband, Shmulik Waiss, stopped responding to Whatsapps from their family.
The couple were in their Kibbutz Be’eri safe room and had been in touch that morning with their five children, four of whom live on the kibbutz.
“Mom started the conversation, of course,” said Ohad Waiss, one of the couple’s sons.
The family discussed how to hold the safe room doors shut and lock windows, and to take knives into the safe room, said Ohad. They also talked about having Shmulik take his gun into the safe room, he added.
Yehudit and Shmulik stopped responding after 10:15 a.m., and as their children attempted to stay alive that day at Be’eri while terrorists massacred members of the community, they kept hoping their parents had survived.
It took another week and a half for the family to discover their father was murdered in the safe room, shot by the terrorists.
Both of their parents’ phones were eventually traced to Gaza, and they received a formal message from the army that their mother had been taken captive there.
Yehudit, a pensioner who worked with kindergarten kids and in the kibbutz dining room, is being treated with radiation for breast cancer.
