A Canadian Israeli peace activist who was feared to have been abducted by Hamas militants on the October 7 attack has been declared dead. 

The 74-year-old woman has been identified as Vivian Silver.

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Who was Vivian Silver?

Vivian Silver was 74 years old. She was a Canadian-Israeli Peace activist and a founder of the Women Wage Peace. 

Silver’s association with Israel began in 1968 when she made her first trip there as a junior in college. She was a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying abroad, and she was 74 years old. 

Silver received an invitation to the Student Zionist Alliance national conference in Montreal while she was there and co-founded the organization. In 1973, she co-organized the first-ever National Conference of Jewish Women, demonstrating her continuous commitment to community involvement.

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Silver, who was born in Winnipeg, moved to Israel in 1974 and settled in Kibbutz Be’eri with her two children and late husband. Within five kilometers of Gaza’s eastern border, the kibbutz was one of the first settlements to be hit by the onslaught.

Her family said that a fire had damaged her home and that she was likely being held captive. The geolocation of her phone pointed to a location in Gaza.

Silver was the director of the Arab Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation and was well-known in the area as a peace campaigner. This group started initiatives that promoted relationships between communities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel.

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