Posters of kidnapped Israelis displayed on a wall in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 15.AMIT ELKAYAM/The New York Times News Service
The number of Canadians killed during the Hamas attack on Israel last weekend has now risen to five people, government officials said at a news conference on Sunday in Ottawa.
The number rose because one Canadian, who was identified as missing, was confirmed deceased over the weekend and an additional victim was brought to the government’s attention, said Julie Sunday, an assistant deputy minister for emergency management at Global Affairs.
Three other Canadians are still missing, Ms. Sunday said.
The federal government has not released the names of any of the Canadians who were victims of the Oct. 7 attack due to privacy concerns.
So far, family and friends have publicly identified four of the Canadians who were killed. They are Montreal’s Alexandre Look, 33; Ben Mizrachi, a 22-year-old raised in Vancouver; and dual-nationals 33-year-old Adi Vital-Kaploun and 22-year-old Shir Georgy.
“It has always been a possibility that missing persons would be confirmed deceased,” Ms. Sunday said. “It is an extremely tragic outcome, our thoughts are with the families in all of these cases.”
Among the missing Canadians are Vivian Silver, 74, and Judih Weinstein Haggai. The family of 23-year-old Tiferet Lapidot, whose father is Canadian, believe she was taken to Gaza as a hostage.
“We are just waiting and waiting,” Ms. Lapidot’s uncle, Harel Lapidot, a Canadian citizen who lives in Israel, said in an interview on Sunday. “Basically, we don’t have days or nights. Every telephone call, we are jumping.”
Ms. Lapidot, who had volunteered helping children with special needs in Israel and South Africa, was at the Supernova music festival and managed to call her mother to tell her there was a terror attack. Her family says her phone and that of a friend were detected in Gaza.
“Not knowing what is going on with her, what she went through, what did she see before she was taken to Gaza, her friends killed, hunted... For us, it is horrible,” her uncle said.
Hamas militants struck the music festival early on Oct. 7 and killed more than 200 people.
Mr. Lapidot said the family has been in “close touch” with Canadian government officials, who are supporting them and trying to help. Ms. Lapidot’s father was born in Regina, though she has spent her life in Israel.
This is the second time a family member has been victimized in a terror attack, Mr. Lapidot said. Ms. Lapidot’s maternal uncle was killed near Gaza when she was a baby.
Ms. Silver, a peace activist who was born in Winnipeg and has lived in Israel since 1974, was taken from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza, her family says.
“We haven’t had any new concrete information about her status,” her son, Yonatan Zeigen, said in a message on Sunday.
Mr. Zeigen said he had also been in touch with Canadian officials, who reassured him that they are “very much involved.”
Hamas, which Canada has designated a terrorist group, also took hostages during their attack on Israel last week. Officials in Israel have been trying to identify how many were abducted and on Sunday raised that number to 155.
Ottawa has declined to say whether any Canadians are among the hostages but Israeli officials have said they are and the federal government sent a team of experts in hostage negotiation to Israel last week.
“We are very focused on addressing the cases of the three missing persons, who we continue to try to locate and bring back to safety in Canada,” Ms. Sunday said.
The government’s official position is that the missing Canadians are alive, she said. “We are moving all of our efforts into locating them.”
Ms. Sunday said Canada’s experts arrived in Tel Aviv a few days ago and are working to liaise with Israeli officials as well as those from other countries, including the United States.
Ms. Georgy was initially believed to be missing but on Saturday her family announced that her body had been found. She as well as Mr. Look and Mr. Mizrachi were also attending the Supernova music festival in the Negev desert, near Gaza.
Ms. Vidal-Kaploun was shot by Hamas gunmen in front of her two sons – four-year-old Negev and 4½-month-old Eshel – at her home in the Holit kibbutz near the Gaza border.