Who is Vivian Silver, Canadian-Israeli peace activist presumed held by Hamas?

globalnews.ca:

Vivian Silver’s son was anxiously texting with his mother on Saturday morning, as Hamas gunmen closed in on her home near Israel’s Gaza border. Her last message read: “They’re inside the house.”The 74-year-old Canadian-Israeli spent her adult life campaigning for peace and human rights for Palestinians, particularly those living in impoverished Gaza.Silver is now presumed to be a prisoner, among the dozens of civilian hostages held by Hamas following the militant group’s coordinated weekend attack on Israeli soil.“This is almost surreal to think that someone who dedicated their entire life to building peace, ending the occupation, lifting the siege of Gaza, is kidnapped by Hamas,” said Ariel Dloomy, Silver’s former colleague at the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, in an interview with Global News.Silver grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Israel in the 1970s.

She quickly became a fierce campaigner, helping to launch and run various aid organizations, including Women Wage Peace.In 2017, Silver organized a march for peace on the shores of the Jordan River in the West Bank, condemning an earlier Israeli attack that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza.During the march, she told a reporter: “We must change the paradigm that we have been taught for seven decades now, when we were told that only war will bring peace. We don’t believe that anymore, it’s been proven that it’s not true.”Even into her 70s, she would drive sick Palestinians from Gaza to hospitals in Israel.“She believes in peace and reconciliation and making the world a better place,” said Yonatan Zeigen, Silver’s son.He, his wife and three young children live in nearby Tel Aviv and had planned to visit his mother over the weekend.