Sons of Hostage Return From US Trip to Terrible News From Gaza

By COLlive reporter

Brothers Daniel and Ohad Weiss, who have just returned from a visit to the US with a group of families of the Gaza hostages, were greeted back home with terrible news regarding their mother, Yehudit Weiss, who was one of the hostages.

The Israel Defense Forces said today it has recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, who was abducted by Hamas on October 7, from a building near Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

The body was brought into Israel for identification, following which the military and police notified Weiss’s family of her death. They did not say when or how she was killed.

Weiss, a mother of five, was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was found murdered in the safe room of their home.

Yehudit, a pensioner who worked with kindergarten kids and in the kibbutz dining room, was being treated with radiation for breast cancer when she was kidnapped.

Just a few weeks ago, Rabbi Mushi Fogelman, Zalman Fellig, Sholom Aharonov, and Mendel Aharonov visited the Weiss home in Be’eri while on a visit to comfort the victims’ families of the Hamas massacre. Both Daniel and Ohad were part of the delegation of the hostage families organized by Chabad of Israel, led by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Aharonov, to pray at the Ohel of the Rebbe in New York and visit Washington, DC to lobby for their loved ones.

Throughout the trip in the US, Daniel played his guitar and sang for the fellow family members, uplifting the others with song during this terrible ordeal.

Rabbi Yosef Aharonov of Chabad of Israel who organized the trip, said that he is devastated by the news about Mrs. Weiss, but he is relieved that she will be able to receive a Jewish burial.