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 were presumed to be of 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 9 months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive. 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 for forgiveness. Sorry not to protect yourself on this terrible day. Sorry not to take your home safely.
The activists showed four black coffins on a stage of the Gaza Strip surrounded by banners, including a great representation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire. Thousands of people, including a large number of masked and armed activists, watched when the coffins were loaded on Red Cross vehicles before being taken to Israeli forces.
The soldiers organized a small funeral ceremony, at the request of families, before transferring the bodies to a laboratory in Israel for formal identification using DNA, a process that could take up to two days. It is only then that families will receive the final notification.
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.
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The Israelis have celebrated the return of 24 living hostages in recent weeks under a tenuous cease-fire which has taken a break on 15 months of war. But the transfer of Thursday was 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.
The infant was the youngest taken hostage
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 loved ones died.
The demonstrators have portraits of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as a video featuring Ariel Bibas, who, with his parents Shiri and Yarden Bibas, and his brother Kfir, are still hostage to Gaza, play Behind them during a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday January 18, 2025. (AP photo / Ohad Zwigenberg).
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.
It is not clear if the ceasefire will last
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.
A man holds a teddy bear to the so-called “ Square d’Obutages ” in Tel Aviv, in Israel, Thursday, February 20, 2025, after the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including a mother and his two children, were Delivered by Palestinian militant groups to the Red Cross in Gaza.
AP photo / Oded Ballety
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.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
