IDF Recovers Bodies of Slain Hostages Gadi Haggai, Judih Weinstein

Stand for Israel  |  June 5, 2025

In a Gaza operation, the IDF recovered the bodies of two murdered hostages, who were a married couple both holding US citizenship, reports The Times of Israel:

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency recovered the bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein from the southern Gaza Strip in an operation overnight, it was announced Thursday.

The two, a married couple who held US citizenship, were murdered during their morning walk near Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and their deaths were confirmed by the military in December of that year…

Haggai, a native of Kibbutz Ein HaShofet, was a retired chef and jazz musician who, having played music since childhood, served in the IDF orchestra for his military service and then lived in the US, where he took up the saxophone, according to the Haaretz daily.

Upon his return to Israel a number of years later, he met Weinstein, who had come from the US and volunteered at Ein HaShofet. The two of them played in a kibbutz jazz ensemble until they left the kibbutz in the late 1970s. In 1994, they and their four children moved to Kibbutz Nir Oz.