Hanna Katzir, who endured seven weeks of Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip last year, has died at age 78 after months of struggling with medical complications from her time as a hostage, her hometown of Kibbutz Nir Oz announced Tuesday.
Katzir was kidnapped from her home in the kibbutz during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. She was released on November 24 as part of a Qatar-negotiated temporary ceasefire deal, just days after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group falsely claimed she had been killed in an IDF airstrike.
Her family reported soon after her release that she had returned in extremely poor health and needed to be hospitalized for heart issues that she hadn’t had before she was kidnapped, adding that “difficult conditions and starvation” had caused the deterioration.
On Tuesday, she became the first former hostage from the October 7 assault to die after her release. She was scheduled to be buried at Kibbutz Nir Oz cemetery at 4 p.m.
“Mom was a loving woman, wife and mother who gave nothing but love,” her daughter Carmit Palty Katzir said in a message sent out by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. “Her heart could not withstand the terrible suffering since October 7.”
Katzir’s husband, Rami, 79, was killed during the attack and her son Elad was taken hostage and later killed. According to the IDF, Elad was likely killed by his captors in January. His body was recovered in April.
Carmit Palty Katzir holds a poster of her brother Elad as relatives and friends of hostages sit on a street outside the private residence of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Caesarea, January 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Hanna Katzir only learned about her husband’s murder and her son’s abduction after returning from captivity.
Palty Katzir noted that those still in captivity were also in extreme danger, urging leaders to reach a deal with Hamas to free them.
Hanna Katzir was born to a family of Holocaust survivors and worked in the kibbutz laundromat.
She is survived by three children and six grandchildren.
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