Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Hamas released four bodies on Thursday, which according to Israeli officials On October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. Their mother would have been returned with them, but the Israeli forces said a few hours later that the remains of another person had been released in place.
The remains were considered to be those of Shiri Bibas and her two childrenAriel and KFIR, as well as Oded Liffhitz, who was 83 years old when he was removed. Kfir, who was 9 months old when he was taken, was the youngest of all the captives. Hamas said the four had been killed with their guards on Israeli air strikes.
In an article on social networks early Friday morning, Israeli defense forces said that the remains of Ariel and Kfir had been returned, but not those of their mother. “During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no correspondence has been found for any other hostage. It is an anonymous body and not Identified “,” The FDI said.
Ali Jadallah / Anadolu / Getty
Activists showed four black coffins on a stage surrounded by banners, including a large representative of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire, while the Red Cross vehicles arrived on the scene in the Gaza Strip.
The fighters then transported the coffins to vehicles from the Red Cross, where the members of the Red Vests staff covered them with white sheets before placing them inside. Each coffin had an image fixed at the front bearing the image of the killed hostage whose remains were allegedly inside.
The Red Cross convoy returned to Israel, where the authorities carried out an official identification process on the remains using DNA, which was to take up to two days. A declaration by the Liffhitz family, however, shared by the Families des Otages forum, said that it had “received with deep sadness the official and bitter news confirming the identification of the body of our beloved Oded”.
“We had hoped for and prayed so much for a different result. We can now cry the husband, the father, the grandfather and the great grandfather that we have been missing since October 7,” said the family, adding that Their “healing process will be starting now and will not end before the last hostage’s return.”
ODED BALLILTY / AP
Thousands of people, including a large number of masked and armed fighters in Hamas and other factions, gathered on the transfer site to the outskirts of the southern city of Gaza of Khan Younis.
“Each house in Israel embodies their head today. We include the head for the heavy loss of our four hostages,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “The four coffins of our loved ones force us more than ever to promise, to swear that what happened on October 7 will never happen again.”
The Israeli channels did not distribute the transfer. In hostage Square in Tel Aviv, where the Israelis gathered to look at the release of the Living hostages, a large screen showed a compilation of photos and videos of Liffhitz and the Bibas family, including a baby that is kfir and the KFIR and the Family disguised as Batman costumes. Yarden Bibas, the father of the children, was not with his family on October 7, but was taken separately. He was Released earlier this month After 16 months in captivity.
Dozens of residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, from which the four hostages killed Thursday were kidnapped, gathered to wave the Israeli flags outside their temporary house at an hour north of the Kibbutz Ravagé.
The Israelis have celebrated the return of 24 living hostages in recent weeks under a tenuous ceasefire It took a break on 15 months of war. But Thursday’s transfer will provide a dark reminder of those who died in captivity while the talks leading to the truce dragged for more than a year.
He could also give the impetus to negotiations on the second stage of the ceasefire that hardly started. The first phase should end in early March.
Kfir Bibas was only 9 months old, an infant with a red head with a steeped smile when activists burst into the family’s home on October 7, 2023. His brother Ariel was 4 years old. The video was shot this day as activists led them to Gaza.
Ariel Schalit / AP
Parents in Israel hung on hope, marking the first and second birthdays of Kfir and the fifth of his brother. The Bibas family said in a statement on Wednesday that it would expect “identification procedures” before recognizing that their relatives had died.
Supporters through Israel have brought Orange in solidarity with the family – a reference to the red hair of two boys – and a popular children’s song was written in their honor.
Like the Bibas family, Oded Lififfz was removed from Kibbutz Nir Oz, with his wife Yocheved, who was released during a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. Oded was a journalist who campaigned for the Recognition of Palestinian rights and peace between the Arabs and the Jews.
Activists led by Hamas have removed 251 hostages, including around thirty children, in the terrorist attack on October 7, in which they also killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.
More than half of the hostages, and most women and children, have been released in cease-fire agreements or other agreements. Israeli forces have saved eight and have recovered dozens of bodies killed during the initial attack or died in captivity.
Hamas is about to release six life hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners, and says that it will release four other bodies next week, ending the first phase of the ceasefire. This will leave activists with sixty hostages, all men, half of whom are considered dead.
Hamas said it would not release the remaining lustful captives and a complete Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full support of the Trump administration, says that it is determined to destroy the military and governing capacities of Hamas and to return all hostages, objectives widely considered to be mutually exclusive.
Mr. Trump’s proposal to withdraw some 2 million Gaza Palestinians so that the United States can own and rebuild it, which was greeted by Netanyahu but universally rejected by the Palestinians and the Arab countries, put the ceasefire the fever in doubt.
Hamas could be reluctant to release more hostages if it believes that the war will resume in order to destroy the group or force the population of Gaza.
The military offensive of Israel killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its files. Israel says he killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, reducing entire districts to fields of rubble and bombed buildings. At its peak, the war moved 90% of the population of Gaza. Many have returned home to no longer find how to rebuild.
