JERUSALEM, Dec  28, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - A US-Israeli woman seized in the 
October 7 Hamas attack was killed on the same day and her body remains in the 
Gaza Strip, her kibbutz community said on Thursday.

       Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, had been thought to be the oldest woman among 
the hostages still held in Gaza.

       Her community of Nir Oz said that Haggai was "murdered in the massacre", 
and that her body remains in the Palestinian territory.

       Thursday's announcement by the kibbutz follows confirmation on December 23 
that her husband, Gad Haggai, was also killed on October 7.
       "The bodies of both are still in the custody of Hamas," the community said, 
without elaborating.

       The couple were among some 250 people taken hostage from Israeli border 
communities and military posts.

       More than 100 of those abducted have since been freed, while 129 are still 
being held in Gaza -- 23 bodies among them.

       Ahl Haggai, the couple's son, said that in a final phone call his mother 
told a paramedic that she and her husband had both been wounded.

       "The only evidence we have... is a video of my dad on the back of a truck, 
laying down injured," Ahl told AFP earlier this month.

       "She's nowhere to be found," he said, with only his mother's glasses 
recovered from the kibbutz.

       Israelis have held frequent rallies to highlight the plight of the 
remaining hostages, with hundreds marching to parliament on Thursday.

       "Bring them home!" they chanted in Jerusalem, an AFP journalist reported.
       The October 7 Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people in 
Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest 
official Israeli figures.

       Israel's relentless offensive on Gaza has since killed 21,320 people, 
mostly civilians, according to the latest toll from the health ministry in the 
Hamas-run territory.