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........

© The Times of Israel