The Israel Defense Forces announced on Tuesday that it had confirmed the death of Bilha Yinon, 76, nearly 10 months to the day after she went missing during the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on her hometown of Netiv HaAsara.
“IDF representatives officially informed the family of Bilha Yinon, of blessed memory, that she is no longer alive,” the military stated. “Bilha Yinon is the last person to be identified of those missing since Oct. 7.”
The IDF said Yinon’s death was established by a committee of experts that also included representatives of the Israel Police, the Health Ministry and the Tel Aviv-based National Institute of Forensic Medicine, working in cooperation with Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
The announcement came after the experts examined “recent findings that were discovered in the area around her home,” the army added.
The 76-year-old was last heard from at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7. Her house was burned down by the approximately 35 Hamas operatives who infiltrated Netiv HaAsara, close to the northern border with the Gaza Strip, and murdered more than 20 people.
Yinon was initially considered dead along with her husband, Yaakov, but a lack of DNA proof led the IDF to retract its preliminary findings.
Some 3,000 Gazan terrorists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and unaffiliated Palestinian “civilians” infiltrated the Jewish state on Oct. 7, murdering approximately 1,200 people, wounding thousands more, and abducting more than 250 men, women, and children to the Gaza Strip.
