Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, said it included a mother and two children who have long been feared and came to embody the country’s agony after the attack on October 7, 2023.
The remains would have been from Shiri Bibas and his two children, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Liffhitz, who was 83 years old when he was removed. Kfir, who was nine months when he was taken, was the youngest captive. Hamas said the four had been killed with their guards on Israeli air strikes.
The Red Cross vehicles moved away from the Gaza Strip transfer site with four black coffins that had been placed on a stage. Each of the coffins had a small image of the hostages.
Hamas has handed over the bodies under the Gaza ceasefire agreement concluded last month with the support of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief statement that Thursday would be “a very difficult day for Israel. An overwhelming day, a day of sorrow”.
Hundreds of people gathered in the winter cold before the transfer of Khan Younis in the south of Gaza. Hamas armed activists in black uniforms and camouflage went around the region.
An activist stood next to a poster of a man standing on coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. Instead of the legs, he had trees of trees in the ground, suggesting that the earth belongs to the Palestinians.
The Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was removed from Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a series of communities near Gaza who were invaded by attackers led by Hamas de Gaza on October 7.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli air strike, but their death was never confirmed by the Israeli authorities and even at the last minute, some refused to accept that They were dead.
“Shiri and the children have become a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, who lost about a quarter of its inhabitants, killed or kidnapped, during the October 7 assault. “I still hope they will be alive.”
Father released earlier
Yarden Bibas was returned to an previous exchange of hostages for prisoners this month. But the family said this week that “their trip was not finished” before having received a final confirmation of what had happened to the boys and their mother.
“We wake up to a difficult morning for all of us. A morning which sharpens the cruelty of our enemies and the justice of our war determined against them until they are destroyed from the face of the earth,” said the Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich An article on the social media platform X.
On the transfer site, a large poster has been suspended, representation Netanyahu As a vampire and characterizing it as a war criminal.
After the transfer, the remains will be moved to draped coffins of the Israeli flag and an army rabbi will provide a short ceremony. They will then be taken to Israel to the National Judicial Institute to be identified, a process that could take a few hours or even a few days.
It is only after the identification that there will be an official announcement of their death and funeral.
Unconfirmed identities
The transfer marks the first return of corpses during the current agreement and Israel should not confirm their identity as long as the complete DNA verifications were not completed.
Despite the accusations on both sides of ceasefire violations, the fragile agreement which entered into force on January 19 has risen since the first in a series of hostage exchanges in Gaza for the Palestinian prisoners And prisoners detained by Israel.
Netanyahu faced criticism from her extreme right coalition allies for accepting the agreement, that some in Israel feel Hamas awards and leave the group militant in place in Gaza.
But successive surveys have shown large support among the public for the ceasefire, and thousands of Israelis went to the streets to demand that the government have fun until all The remaining hostages are returned.
Israel invaded the coastal enclave after the attack led by Hamas against the communities in Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli accounts and taking 251 as offices.
The Israeli military campaign that followed has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, destroyed many of its buildings and left most of the people’s homeless.
More hostages to publish
Thursday’s transfer of body will be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds of other Palestinians, who should be women and minors owned by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first phase of an agreement intended to open the way at the end of the war in Gaza.
Until now, 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thai people who have been returned to an unexpected transfer.
Negotiations for a second phase, supposed to cover the return of around 60 remaining hostages, less than half of which would be alive, and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow the end of the war, start in the next days.
