Canadian-Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver confirmed killed in Israel | 24CA News
Canadian-Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, whose household believed she had been taken hostage by Hamas militants throughout their brutal assaults in Israel on Oct. 7, is useless, in keeping with Global News Canada and a number of sources near her household.
“It is with deep sadness that the Government of Canada has learned that Canadian-Israeli citizen Vivian Silver is deceased,” Global Affairs Canada stated in a press release to Global News.
The company stated it’s in touch with Silver’s household and offering help.
Five sources together with a supply near the household and Israeli authorities additionally confirmed the 74-year-old Winnipeg native’s dying to Global News.
The sources stated her stays have been recognized and that she is believed to have been killed within the preliminary assault by Hamas.
Messages left with Silver’s household weren’t responded to on Monday.
Silver grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Israel within the Nineteen Seventies. She shortly grew to become a fierce campaigner, serving to to launch and run varied support organizations, together with Women Wage Peace.
In 2017, Silver organized a march for peace on the shores of the Jordan River within the West Bank, condemning an earlier Israeli assault that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Even into her 70s, she would drive sick Palestinians from Gaza to hospitals in Israel.
“Our hearts are shattered,” Women Wage Peace stated in a submit on X, formally often called Twitter, calling Silver “our beloved friend.”
Silver’s son Yonatan Ziegen beforehand informed Global News he phoned his mom after listening to studies that Hamas gunmen had been attacking civilians close to her residence in Be’eri Kibbutz, near the Gaza border, on Oct. 7.
Ziegen, who lives along with his spouse and kids in Tel Aviv, stated he and his mom switched to texting by way of WhatsApp after he heard gunshots and screams within the background of their name.
“So we stopped talking so (the gunmen) wouldn’t hear,” he informed Global News. “We continued corresponding through WhatsApp up until the point she wrote me to say, ‘They’re inside the house.’”
The home was later burned to the bottom.
Silver’s different son, Chen Zeigen, stated throughout an interview on The West Block final week that the household was contacted by the Israeli authorities shortly after the assault to say it had geolocated Silver’s cellphone in Gaza.
That lone piece of data had led the household to carry out hope that Silver was nonetheless alive and held captive together with greater than 200 others in Gaza.
“I feel there is still hope that she is alive and well and that we will be able to see her back with us,” Chen Zeigen stated.
Six different Canadian residents and one particular person with “deep connections to Canada” had been killed within the Hamas assaults, in keeping with Global Affairs Canada.
Idit Shamir, Israel’s consul normal in Toronto, known as the news of Silver’s dying “tragic” on X.
“Our hearts go out to her family and friends,” he wrote. “May her memory be a blessing.”
—With recordsdata from Jeff Semple, Mercedes Stephenson and Caryn Lieberman
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
