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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Shin Bet grilling of Gazan detainee led IDF to hostages found in overnight raid: the American-Israeli couple’s bodies held in Khan Younis by same group that murdered Shiri Bibas and her sons

2025-06-05

[IsraelTimes] The overnight operation that recovered the bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein was enabled by intelligence obtained during a Shin Bet interrogation of a Palestinian terror operative who was detained in Gaza, an Israeli defense official tells The Times of Israel.

“The intelligence that is obtained in Shin Bet interrogations is valuable and important, and helps the ground operation and missions like the one carried out overnight,” the official says.

Couple’s remains were held in Khan Younis by same group behind murder of Bibas mom, kids — IDF
[IsraelTimes] The bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein were recovered from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the IDF says, confirming the joint military and Shin Bet operation.

The couple had been held by the Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small terror group in the Strip that was also responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.

The IDF says the operation was carried out using “precise intelligence” from the IDF’s Hostages Headquarters unit, the Intelligence Directorate, and the Shin Bet.

Haggai, 72, and Weinstein, 70, both US citizens, were on their morning walk around the kibbutz when they were murdered and abducted to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are now holding 56 hostages, including 55 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.

They include the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF. Another 20 are believed to be alive, while there are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.

Bodies of hostages Gadi Haggai, Judih Weinstein recovered from Gaza
[IsraelTimes] The Israeli military recovered the bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein from the Gaza Strip overnight, their hometown Kibbutz Nir Oz announces.

The two, a married couple, were murdered during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and their deaths were confirmed by the military in December of that year.

The pair held US citizenship.

Update from the Times of Israel at 12:30 p.m. EDT:

Phone call records Weinstein’s plea for help

Haggai, 72, and Weinstein, 70, were on their morning walk near their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were murdered and abducted to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists.

Security camera footage from that morning showed the couple leaving the kibbutz.

In a chilling phone call to paramedics that morning, Weinstein described her husband’s head wound and urged the operator to send help, as some of the approximately 5,000 invaders rampaged through southern Israel.

“Parts of his brain are out of his… everything is covered with blood,” she told the operator, confirming that terrorists had shot at the couple. Asked if she was somewhere safe, she responded: “No, [I’m] outside, under a tree, next to the road.”

“They came on the road. There were lots of motorcycles and guns. They shot us. We were lying down and they shot us,” she recalled, clarifying that she, too, was shot in the hand and the head.

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.

Weinstein, a teacher and New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, continued to write poetry into her retirement, with a particular love for haiku. She also tutored English, edited academic writing, practiced reiki therapy, and taught mindfulness classes, including through puppetry.

The couple’s son Ahl Haggai told the Ynet news site on Thursday he was caught in a swirl of emotions.

“This is a shocking moment,” he said. “I am both relieved and anxious. This isn’t simple, despite it easing things and removing something [weighing] on the heart. There was an uncertainty that has ended.”

Kibbutz Nir Oz also issued a statement announcing its members’ deaths. Hamas terrorists entered all but six of over 200 homes in the small community and either murdered or kidnapped one of every four residents — 117 people out of some 400.

Posted by:trailing wife

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