Cpl. Noa Marciano, 19, was killed by Hamas terrorists in captivity in Gaza at some point in November, after she was taken hostage on October 7 from the Nahal Oz IDF base near Gaza, where she served as an observation soldier in the Border Defense Corps’s 414th unit.
In an interview with Ynet a few weeks after she was kidnapped, her mother, Adi said she wanted Noa to know “that I miss her and want her to come home. My instincts tell me that she is still alive. She’s probably watching over the little kids.” She worried, she said, “does she have her glasses? Are they hurting her?”
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Marciano was wounded by an IDF airstrike on November 9, while held in Gaza, and later taken to Shifa, where she was murdered.
Hagari said that the pathology report “states Noa was injured by the strike, but not in a life-threatening manner,” contrary to the false Hamas claim that she was killed in a strike. “According to intelligence information, Noa was taken inside the walls of Shifa Hospital, where she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist.”
On November 14, the army declared her dead, and on November 16, they announced that they had recovered her body and brought it back to Israel. She was laid to rest in Modiin on November 17.
She is survived by her mother, Adi, father, Avi, and younger siblings Yuval, Itay and Hadar.
At her funeral, Adi apologized to her daughter for being unable to return her home.
“We tried everything for 40 days. We turned over every stone and climbed every tree,” she said. “You protected us, and we didn’t protect you.”
She recalled her daughter being a “girl of music and literature, a girl of dimples and smiles, a girl of love,” who wanted to serve her country.
Noa’s father said he had been confronted with the question “What do you need?” over the past few weeks.
“I answered that I have everything, and yet I have nothing. I don’t have joy or comfort. Now I have an angel named Noa. I promise you that the way you wanted to lead, we will carry on and not stop. I thank you for being a perfect girl. We love you endlessly and will never forget you,” he said.
Yuval, Noa’s sister, lamented that she had bought a birthday present for her, which was “waiting in your room, in wrapping.”
“I am proud of you, I am happy you cared, that you did what was good for you, that you danced, sang, and you fulfilled yourself like there was no tomorrow.”
