Missing peace activist Vivian Silver is dead
On October 7, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel, Vivian Silver wrote to her son that gunmen had broken into her house. Since then, there has been no sign of life from the peace activist. Now there is sad certainty: the 74-year-old is dead.
The 74-year-old peace activist Vivian Silver, who has been missing since the major attack on Israel by the radical Islamic group Hamas, is dead. "Tragic news: Vivian Silver, the Canadian-Israeli peace activist (...) has been confirmed dead, murdered by Hamas in Kibbutz Beeri," the Israeli consul general in Toronto, Idit Shamir, wrote on Monday on the online service formerly known as Twitter, X. "Canada mourns her loss," Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on X, describing the 74-year-old as a "lifelong advocate for peace".
The German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, called the news of Silver's death on X "devastating". "Vivian Silver, who had worked tirelessly for peace and understanding, was murdered by Hamas, the forces of blind hatred," Seibert wrote in English on X. His condolences go to "her family and her many friends, Jews and Palestinians". Silver's son Yonatan Zeigen, who lives in Tel Aviv, said last month that he had been on the phone with his mother on the day of the Hamas attack when shots were fired at 11.00 am. She then wrote to him that armed men were in her house in Beeri; it was the last sign of life she sent to her son.
More than 100 residents of Beeri were killed in the Hamas attack. The feminist activist Silver campaigned for peace with Palestinians and was honored with numerous awards for her work. She started aid programs for Gaza residents and helped them receive medical treatment in Israel. In 2014, she helped found the Women Wage Peace movement, which now has more than 45,000 members. Hundreds of fighters from Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU, invaded Israel on 7 October and committed atrocities, mainly against civilians.
According to Israeli reports, around 1,200 people were killed in Israel and around 240 people were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip. Since then, the Israeli military has been massively attacking targets in the Gaza Strip, and ground troops have now also entered the Palestinian territory. According to Hamas, which cannot be independently verified, around 11,240 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip by Monday evening.
Source: www.ntv.de
