Peace Activist Thought to Be a Hostage in Gaza Is Confirmed Dead
Vivian Silver, 74, a Canadian Israeli, was believed to have been abducted on Oct. 7 but was killed in the initial attacks that day, her son said.
A Canadian Israeli peace activist who was thought to have been abducted and taken to Gaza on Oct. 7 was confirmed to have been killed in the initial attack that day, according to her son.
During the attack, the activist, Vivian Silver, 74, wrote to members of the Women Wage Peace group that she had helped found, telling them that terrorists had entered her home at Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel and that she was hiding in a safe room. Because her body was not initially found in the ashes of her home, which had been set on fire, her friends and family thought she was missing.
The Israeli government believes that more than 230 hostages taken on Oct. 7 are held in Gaza, including children and older people from several countries.
Ms. Silver’s photo has been featured on posters plastered in cities across the world to draw attention to the Oct. 7 abductions, and her story has been widely shared.
Her family was formally notified of her death by Israeli authorities, her son, Chen Zeigen, said on Tuesday.
Ms. Silver was known for her commitment to peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians. After the war in Gaza in 2014, she co-founded Women Wage Peace, which lobbies for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. She also helped found and direct the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation and served for years on the board of directors of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.
transcript
A Son’s Conversation With His Mother as Gunmen Attacked Her Kibbutz
Yonatan Ziegen said he last heard from his mother on Saturday when they were texting during an assault on Be’eri, an Israeli kibbutz. She messaged him to say that assailants were in the house before going silent.
We were corresponding until she wrote that they’re inside the house. And then communications stopped. The kibbutz was overrun. Everybody was locked in their houses. We heard gunshots. I heard them over the phone outside the window. And she was hiding in her safe room. You know, she was joking. She — about the stuff she should have had in the safe room, like a toilet or a knife. And she’s an extremely nonviolent person, so. But in the end, she said, “OK. The jokes can stop. I just – I love you.” And I wrote her, “I love you.” And that’s it. It was very helpless, a helpless feeling. In my mind, I still not 100 percent sure if she’s in Gaza or she’s dead on the ground in her house. She works in the peace industry. She was co-C.E.O. of an organization. They had projects in Gaza. That was her life’s work. She was always very invested in that, in making the world a better place. And she failed. I’m in touch with so many friends of hers and colleagues, and they’re working with me because she was so meaningful for them, and she’s meaningful for me also. And you don’t always show it as a son. I hope she — I hope she — she felt it when she was taken. I hope she felt how much I love her.
Ms. Silver regularly drove sick Palestinians from Gaza, near her home, into Israel for medical treatment as part of the Road to Recovery organization.
“We never stopped hoping that she was kidnapped, that she’s alive, that she’s with other people, that she would come back to us,” said Yael Braudo-Bahat, a co-director of Women Wage Peace whom Ms. Silver mentored, in an interview.
Susan Lax, a longtime friend who met Ms. Silver about five decades ago at a kibbutz, said she had been immediately drawn to her.
“She was my role model for women’s rights, for feminism, and for never ever giving up on peace,” Ms. Lax said.
Ms. Silver would have wanted the work of Women Wage Peace to continue, Ms. Braudo-Bahat said.
“Vivian is sitting on my shoulder from now on,” she said. “I’m going to apply all of the things I learned from her so that there will be peace here.”
Roni Rabin contributed reporting.
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