NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank Center:Israel says second hostage Noa Marciano found dead near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital

A funeral was held Friday in Israel for Noa Marciano,NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank Center a 19-year-old Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and whose body was found near the Al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza this week, the Israel Defense Forces said. On Thursday, another hostage's body, that of 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss, was found near Al-Shifa, according to the IDF.

"The national task before our eyes is to locate the missing and return the abducted persons home," the IDF said in a statement Friday. "We will not cease from the mission until it is completed."

The IDF said targeted intelligence allowed it to locate the exact location of Marciano's body.

The IDF has claimed that Al-Shifa, home to Gaza's largest hospital, sits above a main Hamas command center. The U.S. has said it also has intelligence to support Israel's claims.

Israel released photos and video clips Thursday showing what it described as Hamas "terror infrastructure" inside the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, including an "operational tunnel shaft," weapons and ammunition.

Israel has indicated that it could expand its operations inside Gaza further south, where hundreds of thousands of civilians from the north have fled after being told to evacuate for safety. On Thursday, Israel dropped leaflets on areas near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis telling civilians to evacuate, the Associated Press reported.

The IDF did not respond to CBS News' request for comment on the leaflets or on its operations in the south of Gaza.

The Israeli military called for civilians in southern Gaza to move to a "safe zone" near the coast, but the heads of 18 U.N. agencies and aid groups on Thursday rejected that proposal, saying that it was too dangerous to concentrate civilians in one area during the ongoing war, the AP reported.

On Friday, the Tanzanian government confirmed that a 22-year-old agricultural intern who was believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct. 7 had been found dead. Details of how Clemence Felix Mtenga died, or where or how his body was found, weren't released by either the Tanzanian or Israeli governments. Mtenga was one of 260 Tanzanians studying agriculture in Israel as part of an agreement between the two countries. 

In:
• Hamas
• Israel
• Gaza Strip

Haley Ott

Haley Ott is cbsnews.com's foreign reporter, based in the CBS News London bureau. Haley joined the cbsnews.com team in 2018, prior to which she worked for outlets including Al Jazeera, Monocle, and Vice News.

Twitter Instagram