IDF confirms death of 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano
November 16, 2023IDF confirms death of 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano after Hamas terrorists released horrific hostage video that also showed her body
- The Israeli army confirmed the death of soldier Noa Marciano on Tuesday
- She had been seen in a video, understood to be from October 11, addressing a camera. The clip then cut to graphic images purportedly of her body
- Follow MailOnline’s LIVE coverage of the on-going Israel-Hamas conflict here
Israel’s military has confirmed the death of a soldier held captive in Gaza today after Hamas issued video of her alive followed by images of what the Palestinian faction said was her body after she was killed in an Israeli strike.
Hamas’s military wing issued a video of captive Israeli soldier Noa Marciano, 19, and the Israeli army on Tuesday confirmed she was dead.
It appeared to be the first time Israel has confirmed such a claim by Hamas, which in the past has said that dozens of hostages from its October 7 attack on Israeli border villages and army bases had died or were missing due to the ensuing Gaza war.
In the Hamas video, disseminated on social media on Monday, Ms Marciano identified herself on camera.
She said she had been held in Gaza for four days, indicating it was taped on October 11 – four days after Hamas’s October 7 incursion into southern Israel.
Hamas’s military wing issued a video of captive Israeli soldier Noa Marciano (pictured), 19, and the Israeli army on Tuesday confirmed she was dead
The video then shows still pictures of a young woman of similar appearance lying, looking sallow and with her eyes closed, on a blood-stained bedsheet.
A close-up image shows a bloody head wound.
A caption over the video clip – which has been shared widely on social media – said Marciano was killed ‘in an air strike by the Zionist enemy’ last Thursday.
MailOnline has chosen not to show the video.
The military statement did not comment on the circumstances of Marciano’s death .
It described her as an ‘abductee fatality in the hands of a terrorist organisation’, and that she had served as a conscripted private in the border defence corps.
But the IDF condemned the video, saying: ‘The Hamas terrorist organisation continues to exploit psychological terrorism and act inhumanely, through videos and photos of the hostages, as done in the past.’
This morning, the IDF listed her as a ‘fallen soldier held captive by a terror group’ on its website where it details soldiers who have been killed in the conflict.
Israel’s military say 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting inside Gaza since launching its ground invasion into the coastal enclave.
Around 300 soldiers are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack itself.
Meanwhile, around 240 hostages are thought to still be in Gaza. Four were released by Hamas and a fifth was rescued by Israeli forces.
Marciano is among the latest Israeli victims to have been confirmed killed by Hamas in the conflict, with Israeli officials also saying today that it have identified 859 civilians killed in October 7 attack – 16 higher than the last update on November 8.
Identifying the victims of the attack that sparked the war has been a slow process.
A spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry said on Friday that the death toll from the attack on southern Israel had been revised to around 1,200 from a previous government estimate of 1,400, suggesting around 350 victims remain unidentified.
Smoke rises in Gaza which is seen from the Sderot city as the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue on the 39th day, in Sderot, Israel on November 14
Vivian Silver, a Canadian-born Israeli activist who devoted her life to seeking peace with the Palestinians, was also confirmed today to be among those killed by Hamas.
READ MORE: The youngest victims of the Gaza war: Time is running out for 36 newborns at Shifa hospital
For 38 days, Ms Silver, who moved to Israel in the 1970s and made her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, had been believed to be among the nearly 240 hostages held in the Gaza Strip. But identification of some of the most badly burned remains has taken time, and her family were notified of her death on Monday.
Ms Silver was a dominant figure in several groups that promoted peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as a prominent Israeli human rights group.
She also volunteered with a group that drove Gaza cancer patients to Israeli hospitals for medical care.
Her son, Yonatan Zeigen, told Israel Radio on Tuesday: ‘On the one hand, she was small and fragile. Very sensitive. On the other hand, she was a force of nature.
She had a giant spirit. She was very assertive. She had very strong core beliefs about the world and life.’
Mr Zeigen said he texted with his mother during the attack.
The exchanges started out light-hearted, with Ms Silver maintaining her sense of humour, he said. But suddenly there was a dramatic downturn when she understood the end had come, and militants stormed her house.
‘Her heart would have been broken’ by the events of October 7 and its aftermath, Mr Zeigen said. ‘She worked all her life, you know, to steer us off this course. And in the end it blew up in her face.’
At least 1,200 people have been killed in Hamas attacks on Israel while more than 11,000 Palestinians have died so far in the Israeli war in Gaza, now in its 39th day.
A person (left) holds a poster of Vivian Silver (bottom-right) as medical staff and health professionals attend a demonstration in front of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in London, Thursday, November 9 calling for the release of hostages in Gaza
Ms Silver said in a 2017 interview with the Associated Press: ‘We went through three horrific wars in the space of six years.
‘At the end of the third one, I said “No more. We each have to do whatever we can to stop the next war. And it’s possible. We must reach a diplomatic agreement”.’
Mr Zeigen said he has now taken up his mother’s baton.
‘I feel like I’m in a relay race,’ he said. ‘She has passed something on to me now. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I think we can’t turn the clock back now. We have to create something new now, something in the direction of what she worked for.’
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