A nine-month pregnant woman who was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 has likely given birth in captivity, Israeli officials said.
The woman is assumed to have given birth because 39 days have passed since her abduction, and not based on confirmed information, the Times of Israel explained.
The woman – who has not been named publicly – is one of the at least 240 men, women, and children who are believed to have been taken from southern Israel into the Gaza Strip during Hamas’ deadly terror attack last month.
Israeli officials released news of the possible birth on Monday, the same day that representatives from the Israel Defense Forces visited the family of Cpl. Noa Marciano after Hamas published a chilling video of her.
The footage showed the 19-year-old providng identifying information and pleading with the Israeli military to cease its retaliatory bombardment of Gaza – and then cut to images of her dead body.
The IDF denounced the video as “psychological terror” and vowed that it was “using all means…to bring the [surviving] hostages home.”
On Wednesday, mediators in Qatar proposed a deal in which Israel would release some Palestinian women and children from its jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza in exchange for the release of about 50 hostages.
Hamas has okayed the general stipulations of the agreement, but Israel is still negotiating the specifics, officials explained.
In the six weeks since the war started, Hamas has revealed four hostages: American mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan, and Nurit Yitzhak and Yochved Lifshitz from Kibbutz Nir Oz.