Spare a thought for Noa Marciano, 19, an IDF soldier who’s dead, but didn’t die in combat. She was kidnapped by Hamas with the other 240 hostages on October 7, kidnapped from her bed at about 6:30 or 7 AM when she was wearing her pajamas on a holiday morning. I believe she’s the only non-wounded hostage that we know for sure is no longer alive. The circumstances of her death are unclear, but I’m fairly sure about what happened.
Hamas on Monday released a video of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier who was captured in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that included clips of her speaking early in the conflict and then images of her lifeless body. Hamas said she had been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Thursday.
The Israeli military confirmed the death of the soldier, Noa Marciano, in a brief statement on Tuesday that did not indicate how she had died but said she had been “kidnapped by a terrorist organization.” An earlier statement that appeared to confirm the authenticity of the video condemned it as “psychological terrorism.”
Ms. Marciano served in an intelligence unit and was stationed at a lookout post on Kibbutz Nahal Oz when Hamas attacked.
. . . The video shows Ms. Marciano speaking into a camera and providing identifying information about herself and her family. She says that she is being held in Gaza and has been there for about four days with other hostages, and she pleads with the Israeli military to stop targeting the area, saying the explosions are close by, continual and could harm the hostages. The video ends with still images of Ms. Marciano’s lifeless body splayed on a bloodied white sheet. It was impossible to independently conclude how Ms. Marciano died.
If I was a betting man, and willing to bet on a ghoulish outcome like this, I’d say that Hamas killed her after they made that video. Why? Well, what are the chances that an IDF soldier would be the single hostage killed by Israeli fire among 240 captured—a death that was heavily publicized by Hamas? And if the hostages are kept in groups in the tunnels, which is likely, how did she get killed by an explosion?. Plus her video talks about Israel causing explosions nearby. It’s just too convenient to say that one of those explosions killed her.
Here she is at her high-school graduation.
And a video from Tom Gross’s newsletter yesterday:
This one-minute video was an appeal made a few days ago directly to Hamas not to harm Noa, by her mother Adi and by Lucy Aharish (translating into Arabic). Noa was confirmed dead this morning. She was a very sweet girl, aged 19, from Modiin, a town in between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She was not a “settler” as wrongly claimed by some western newspapers reporting on her death this morning.
(The video is very moving. Noa’s mother Adi works as the receptionist at a medical center in Modiin that subscribers to this email list go to.)
A still from the Hamas video. See more information at Newsweek:
…or she could have been savagely raped to death. The horror never ends.
Ah, yes, the lovely morals of the jihadist terrorists, for whom rape is a virtue. How anyone can be even slightly supportive of Hamas is beyond me.
I agree, being military would have weighted against her, the young woman would not have lasted long after Hamas got what they wanted and planned that way. As for the other hostages, we should I think prepare for more of this. Their deaths will also be framed in such a way as to hang it on the IDF. I hope I’m wrong.
She died a hero fighting for Israel against Hamas. I am looking at her high school graduation picture, so full of promise, and I am thinking of Noa and her grieving family.
I can understand a kibbutz being overrun by a surprise attack but it should not have been possible for Hamas to penetrate the security of a military installation so easily. That said, for what it’s worth, I’m right behind the IDF operation to root out and eradicate Hamas in Gaza or elsewhere.
Not the first hostage they murdered since Oct. 7. At least the fifth.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-hostage-death/
I guess I meant hostages taken into Gaza and sequestered. These four were being walked out of the kibbutz and then were shot, which is not precisely what I meant. But thanks for the information!
I’m the mum of a daughter around her age . I can only imagine the pain and torment her parents and family must have been through knowing Noa was held by the sick , rapist killers of Hamas.
May God keep her close.
I am thinking of Noa and her family again today. The IDF just announced that her original injuries were not life threatening, and that she was later murdered in Shifa Hospital.
See report here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-noa-marciano-was-murdered-by-hamas-in-shifa-not-killed-by-israeli-airstrike/
Hamas has said 40 hostages,plus members of Hamas have been killed from the bombings. IDF has given us pretty gory details of everything so far, why not tell us how Noa died? Unless she actually was killed by their bombing? It’s suspicious to me. Just food for thought.