Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Hamas published the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, which include a mother and her two young children who have long been feared and came to embody the agony of the nation after On October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel.
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.
“Our hearts – The heart of an entire nation – is in tatters,” said Israeli president Israel Isaac Herzog in a press release. “In the name of the state of Israel, I will bow my head and ask myself for forgiveness. Sorry not to protect you this terrible day. Sorry so as not to bring you home safely.”
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 a photo of the hostages, noted the reuters news agency.
Ramadan Abed / Reuters
The Red Cross convoy returned to Israel, where the authorities will carry out the formal identification of the remains using DNA, should take up to two days. It is only then that families will receive the final notification.
A declaration from the Netanyahu office confirmed that Israel “received the coffins of four hostages fallen”.
Netanyahu said in a brief video declaration until Thursday would be “a very difficult day for Israel. An overwhelming day, a day of sorrow,” said Reuters.
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.
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.
ODED BALLILTY / AP
Dozens of residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, where the four were kidnapped, gathered to wave the Israeli flags outside their temporary house at an hour north of Kibbutz.
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.
Her husband, Yarden Bibas, was taken separately and released this month after 16 months in captivity.
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, during the October 7 attack, 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 expected to release six life hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and says 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.
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- fire 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.
