JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israel-American man thought to have been taken hostage in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack has been declared dead.
The death of Gadi Haggai, 73, was announced Friday by Kibbutz Nir Oz, which said it had been determined that Haggai was killed in the kibbutz on Oct. 7 and his body was taken to Gaza.
He is the first American to die in Hamas captivity, according to the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
Haggai had been thought to be among the more than 100 Israeli hostages still alive in Gaza. The announcement did not say how his death had been determined.
It described Haggai as a “gifted wind instrument player … connected to the earth, a chef and a follower of a healthy vegan diet and sports.” It said his wife, Judy Weinstein, was wounded and remains in captivity in Gaza.
Nir Oz was among the hardest hit communities on Oct. 7, with roughly a quarter of its residents taken hostage or killed.
Meanwhile, The U.N. Security Council passed a new resolution that calls for speeding up humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza, but without the original call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
The United States and Russia abstained from Friday's vote, which was delayed for days as diplomats sought to avoid a veto by the U.S., Israel’s closest ally.
The U.N. says more than a half-million people are starving in Gaza because not enough food has entered the besieged territory as Israel keeps up its blistering campaign of airstrikes and ground operations for over 10 weeks.
Palestinian officials said Friday that the death toll has now exceeded 20,000 — around 1% of the territory's prewar population. The Health Ministry in Gaza does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel says more than 130 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking about 240 hostages.