IDF recovers body of second Israeli hostage near Shifa Hospital in Gaza

Following the recovery of the body of Yehudit Weiss a hostage in Gaza, the IDF found the body of Cpl. Noa Marciano near Shifa Hospital.

By JNS

The Israel Defense Forces said on Friday it recovered the body of Cpl. Noa Marciano from the Gaza Strip, three days after confirming she was killed by Hamas in captivity.

IDF troops from the 7th Armored Brigade’s 603rd Battalion found the body in a building adjacent to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and returned it to Israel for identification.

Marciano, a resident of Modi’in in central Israel, was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she served as a lookout.

On Monday night, Hamas released a video of Marciano that the military described as “psychological terror.” The video claimed that she was killed in an airstrike in Gaza.

The next morning, the IDF cleared for publication that the 19-year-old had already died in captivity.

“After analyzing the footage, experts suggest that her injuries do not align with those typically sustained in airstrikes,” the IDF said in a statement. “The observed wounds appear more consistent with bullet injuries, and there is also an indication that she may have suffered from injuries related to a fall from a height.”

Hamas has denied the International Red Cross any access to any of the estimated 240 captives being held in Gaza.

On Thursday night, the IDF announced that soldiers had located and recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, from a building near Shifa Hospital.

Hamas terrorists kidnapped both Marciano and Weiss during their Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in southwestern Israel.

In recent weeks, Israel has provided extensive evidence that Hamas uses hospitals, mosques, schools and other civilian sites for their terror warfare against Israel, and that the terror group has a command center in the tunnel system underneath Shifa.

Earlier on Thursday, Dr. Muhammad Abu-Salamiyyah, director of Shifa, told Al Jazeera that “the IDF forces collected bodies from the hospital.”

Asked about the claim at the press conference, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said: “We are working in Shifa Hospital for 48 hours. It’s a complex operation. It’s a large complex.

“In the operation, we found underground [infrastructure], weapons and we found information relating to the hostages. Next to the hospital, we found Yehudit Weiss,” he said.

“We will continue to update when we have confirmed information on all the additional achievements of the operation, and we hope for additional achievements,” added Hagari. “Until then, we must wait and be patient.”