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Hamas releases the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including mother and young sons
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TEL AVIV, Israel — Hamas has handed over what it said are the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including a mother and her two young sons who had become a symbol in Israel of the plight of hostages held in Gaza. The bodies will undergo forensic testing in Israel to confirm their identity.
The bodies are believed to be Shiri Bibas, 33, her sons Ariel and Kfir, ages 4 and nine months at the time of their capture, and Oded Lifshitz, 84. All were taken hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Hamas says they were killed in Israeli strikes during the Gaza war.
Shiri Bibas' husband Yarden was also taken hostage with the family. He was released alive earlier this month. The Bibas family and their two small redheaded children had become a symbol of the hostage struggle in Israel throughout the war, with posters of their faces plastered along city streets and commemorations held on the children's birthdays.
Lifshitz was a retired journalist and peace activist who helped found the kibbutz Nir Oz. He volunteered with Road to Recovery, an Israeli organization of volunteers who drive Palestinians to hospital appointments in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. His wife, Yocheved, 85, was also taken hostage and freed after about two weeks.
"This is part of the terrible tragedy of people who went in alive and perished inside. It's a tragic death in agony," said Lifshitz's son, Yizhar, to Israeli army radio. "This is an anger that will stay with the families forever, including me and my family."
Israeli media outlets are not broadcasting the Hamas handover ceremony
Their remains were handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross at a staged ceremony near a cemetery in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Large crowds gathered as masked Hamas gunmen presided over the ceremony at a stage with four coffins draped in black, flanked by large posters with messages in Hebrew and English.
One poster depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a fanged vampire. Another threatened that if Israel resumed the Gaza war, other hostages would be returned in coffins. Israeli media outlets said they would not publish images from the Hamas ceremony out of respect for the dead hostages' families.
The Mujahideen Brigades, a small Palestinian militant faction in Gaza, said it held Shiri Bibas and her children alive in Gaza and that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war in late November 2023. Hamas says Lifshitz was also killed in an Israeli strike while he was held hostage in Gaza.
A Palestinian woman attending the ceremony, who gave her name as Umm Ahmed, said that as a mother, it was an "eye for an eye" to see the coffins of children being transferred back to their families. "Just as they killed us, they killed their own children, They killed their own children with their own hands," she said.
Israel had not previously confirmed their deaths, leaving some hope in Israel they were still alive. On Wednesday evening, Israel said it was informed of the identities of the four bodies being handed over.
"On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. Prominent right-wing Israeli politicians called to destroy Israel's enemies in response."
The hostage bodies will be driven to a Tel Aviv forensic institute
Today's release is the first time Hamas has handed over the bodies of hostages during the war, although several have been recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza and returned to Israel.
Israeli troops in Gaza received the hostages' bodies, transferred them to coffins draped in Israeli flags, and held a short memorial ceremony. An Israeli military rabbi read a traditional Jewish mourners prayer and troops fired ceremonial shots in the air, before a convoy drove the coffins across the border to Israel. Israelis gathered along roads in southern Israel as the convoy transported the bodies to an Israeli forensic institute in Tel Aviv, which will examine the bodies and provide official identification, and seek to determine the cause of death.
In exchange for the bodies, Israel on Saturday is expected to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, as outlined in the fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Among those to be released are prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis, as well as women and minors detained in Gaza during the war and held without charge or sentencing.
Hamas agreed to accelerate hostage releases this week
This is the seventh such hostage-for-prisoner exchange in the month-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas has also agreed to release all six remaining living Israeli hostages it had committed to freeing by the end of February this Saturday, including two who have been held for around a decade. The group has also committed to releasing four more bodies of hostages next week.
In exchange, Israel is acceding to Hamas' request to allow heavy machinery to unearth the bodies of Palestinians buried under rubble. It is also allowing mobile homes into Gaza for those whose homes were destroyed in Israeli strikes during the 15-month-war sparked by the Hamas attack, according to an Israeli official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the arrangement.
Israel says these agreements were reached through mediators during negotiations in Cairo. As part of the deal, Israel will continue to release Palestinian detainees arrested in Gaza during the war and longtime prisoners convicted for deadly attacks against Israelis.
Dozens of hostages remain in Gaza
The first phase of the ceasefire is set to end March 2, and there will still be 59 hostages remaining in Gaza, nearly half of them confirmed dead, according to Israel. Talks about the next phase of the deal – which were supposed to begin weeks ago – have yet to take place.
Hamas says it is ready to "engage immediately" in negotiations to extend the ceasefire and release all remaining Israeli hostages in one batch and not in stages, in exchange for Israel freeing more Palestinian prisoners.
"These steps reflect the seriousness of [Hamas] in implementing the terms of the agreement as stated, and in response to the efforts of the mediators," Hamas said in a statement.
But far-right members of Israel's governing coalition oppose further hostage-prisoner swaps and call for Israel to renew fighting in Gaza against Hamas.
The latest Israel-Hamas conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants from Hamas and other groups broke through the border with Israel and killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities. In the ensuing 15 months of war, more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza health authorities.
Anas Baba in Khan Younis, Itay Stern in Tel Aviv, Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Ramallah, Ahmed Abuhamda in Cairo, and Yanal Jabarin in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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