For 16 months, the smiling faces of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had slowly remote in the background of Israeli life as their photographs – Published on the walls and bus stops shortly after the abduction of the family in Gaza in October 2023 – began to fade, tear and set off.
Friday, the life of the bibes and the disturbing deaths were brought back to the foreground of the collective conscience of Israel in such a surprising and disturbing way that it sparked a new alarm on the long-term fate of the ceasefire- fragile fire in Gaza. The truce seemed ready to continue throughout the weekend, while the two parties were preparing for another exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, but the turmoil on the Bibas family increased doubts concerning a prolongation .
Early Friday morning, the Israeli army announcement that the body of Mrs Bibas – Nominally turnedWith those of his sons, by Hamas to Israel on Thursday – seemed to be that of someone else. And an autopsy of the two boys, aged 4 and 8 months at the time of their abduction, revealed that the terrorists had killed them in Gaza “with bare hands,” said the army.
A senior Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzouq, said in a telephone interview that the family had been killed on an Israeli air strike in November 2023, rejecting the accusation that a small militant group held hostages, Mujahideen brigades , had murdered them. But Mr. Abu Marzouq admitted that Ms. Bibas’s body may have been held in Gaza by mistake, saying that the members of Hamas were now looking for her remains in a place where the family had been buried alongside the Palestinians.
No account of the team could be checked independently.
The news have triggered a paroxysm of fury and agony in Israel rarely seen since the tumultuous days that followed The attack led by Hamas On October 7, 2023, when up to 1,200 people were killed and 251 were removed, including Ms. Bibas and her sons, the deadliest day in Israeli history.
For the Palestinians, the devastation formulated by Israel military response to the raids of October 7 – a reaction which, among other consequences, Shaved Palestinian burial group And killed thousands of children Including some younger than Kfir Bibas – long overshadowed Hamas terrorist attacks at the start of the war.
But the Israelis remain deeply traumatized by the October assault, and the return of Bibas boys, associated with uncertainty about the place where their mother is and the disrespectful way that Hamas paraded their coffins Thursday, revived the torment.
Responding to the announcement of the army, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned to the language of revenge which defined his speeches following the attack on October 7.
“May God avenged their blood,” said Netanyahu in a Speech recorded to the nation Friday morning. “And we will also have our revenge.”
The bubbling tenor of Mr. Netanyahu’s response was maintained in a large part of the Israeli political spectrum. Naftali Bennett, a former Prime Minister, said in an interview with the dissemination that the treatment of bibes has shown how “the majority of Gazans wanted to assassinate all the Israelis”. (Vote Last fall suggested that less than 40% of Gazan Palestinians supported the attack on October 7, against more than 70% at the start of last year.)
This combination of vulnerability and revenge was aggravated by the news overnight that, according to Israeli security services, the terrorists had exploded bombs several buses through the center of Israel. The vehicles were empty at the time. Commentators said that attacks may have been a response to Israeli military operations in occupied West Bankwho have moved tens of thousands of Palestinians from their houses.
For some Israelis, the fate of the Bibas family underlined the need to restart war to defeat Hamas once and for all. The current truce should flow in early March, unless Hamas and Israel can accept an extension. “The only solution is the destruction of Hamas, and that should not be postponed,” said Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Far -Right Finance, in An article on social networks.
But others called for calm, arguing that the fate of the Bibas family illustrated why the truce should be extended to bring back to the house around 70 hostages still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza.
The management of the village of Nir Oz, the hometown of the Bibes, published on Friday a statement which called Israel to “stick to our values ​​and clear demands of the Bibas family at the moment: Liberation, not revenge. The state must bring Shiri by all means, in a way that does not compromise the continuation of the agreement and the immediate release of all the hostages. »»
Isaac Herzog, the mainly ceremonial president of Israel, also called the government “Remember our greatest duty – to do everything in our power to bring back each of our kidnapped sisters and brothers. All. Until the last.
For the moment, the truce seems to last at least a few other days. Six living Israeli hostages should be published on Saturday, and analysts said it was unlikely that Israel will do everything to compromise their freedom. Hamas announced their names on Friday morning, projecting a business sense as usual.
The six included two Israeli citizens – Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed – which was captured by Hamas years before the attack in 2023 after the two entered Gaza on their own. Israel said he had received a list of hostages set to release and informed their family but had not immediately confirmed that they were the same six nominated by Hamas.
The long -term future of the truce seemed even less clear. Depending on the conditions agreed in January, the parties had to start negotiations for the extension of the agreement almost three weeks ago, but have not yet done so.
Arab leaders were meet Friday, in Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to rid a proposal to reconstruct Gaza which would allow the peaceful transfer of the power of Hamas to an alternative to the Palestinian administration.
But in Israel, analysts have hypothesized that the government prefers to expel Hamas by force.
“If it depends on Netanyahu and his associates of the far -right coalition, next week – after the end of the first stage of the agreement with the return of four other hostage bodies – the road to renew the war in Gaza will be defined “,” wrote Amos HarelA commentator on the military affairs of Haaretz, a newspaper on the left. “This time, they promise, without constraints.”
The reports were brought by Adam Rasgon to Jerusalem, Johnatan Reiss in Tel Aviv, and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad In Haifa, Israel.
