On Thursday, Hamas announced the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include their mother and her two children who have long been afraid of the dead and that they came to embody the nation’s agony after October 7, 2023.
The remains of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, were assumed to be the remains of Shiri Bibas, as well as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted. Kfir, who was 9 months old when they took him, was the youngest prisoner. Hamas said all four were killed with their guards at Israeli air attacks.
“Our hearts – the hearts of the whole nation – lie in Tatlica,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. “In the name of the state of Israel, I worship my head and seek forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home.”
The militants showed four black coffins on stage in the gauze lane surrounded by banners, including Velika depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire. Thousands of people, including a large number of masked and armed militants, watched the coffins were loaded on the Red Cross vehicles before taking him to Israeli forces.
The army held a small funeral ceremony, at the request of the family, before transferring the body to the laboratory in Israel for formal identification using DNA, a process that could take up to two days. Only then will families get a final notice.
Hamas publishes 3 hostages in the midst of uncertainty over a tribute
Israeli channels did not broadcast handover. In Tel Aviv Square, where the Israelis gathered to watch the Living Tatec edition, a large screen showed a compilation of the photos and videos of Lifshitz and the Bibas family, including Chunging Baby Kfir and a family dressed in Batman costumes.
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In recent weeks, the Israelis celebrated the return of 24 living hostages under a strenuous dedication fire that paused during the 15 months of war. However, the handover on Thursday was a gloomy reminder of those who died in captivity while the conversations that led to the receivables that dragged themselves for more than a year.
This could also provide an incentive for negotiations on the second phase of a tribute that can barely start. The first phase should end in early March.
The infant was the youngest taken hostage
Kfir Bibas was only 9 months old, a red -haired child with a toothless smile, when militants were falling into the family home on October 7, 2023 .. while the militants led them to Gaza.
Her husband Yarden Bibas was taken separately and was released this month after 16 months in captivity.
The cousins in Israel were hoped, celebrating Kfir’s first and second birthday and brother Peti. The Bibas family on Wednesday stated that she would wait for “identification procedures” before admitting that their loved ones were dead.
Demonstrations hold hostage portraits that Hamas held in Gaza comic as a video containing Ariel Bibas, who, along with his parents Shiri and Yarden Bibas, and his brother Kfir, still hold as a hostage in Gaza, play behind them during protests in the protest Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, January 18, 2025 (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg).
The supporters throughout Israel wore an orange in solidarity with family – a reference to the red hair of two boys – a popular children’s song was written in their honor.
Like the Bibas family, Odeed Lifshitz was abducted by Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his wife Yocheved, who was released during the weekly truck in November 2023. Oded was a journalist who advocated the recognition of Palestinian rights and peace between the Arabs and Jews.
The Hamas militants abducted 251 hostages, including about 30 children, in an attack on October 7, in which they also killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
More than half of the hostages, and most women and children were released in interruption agreements or other contracts. Israeli forces saved eight and recovered dozens of people killed in an initial attack or who died in captivity.
It is not clear if the fire interruption will last
On Saturday, Hamas will release six living hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and says he will release four more bodies next week, ending the first phase of the tribute. This will leave militants with about 60 hostages, and all men, who are believed to be dead.
The man holds a teddy bear on the so -called ‘hostage square’ in Tel Aviv in Israel, on Thursday, February 20, 2025, after Palestinian handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including his mother and her two children, a militant group to the Red Cross in Gaza.
AP PHOTO/ODED BALILTY
Hamas said he would not let the remaining prisoners without a permanent truce and full of Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with complete support of Trump’s administration, says that it is dedicated to destroying Hamas’ military and managing capacity and returning all hostages, goals that are widely considered to be exclusive.
Trump’s proposal to remove about two million Palestinians from Gaza so that he can now own it and renew it, which Netanyahu greeted, but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, he threw an income on further doubt.
Hamas could hesitate to release more hostages if he believes the war will continue to destroy the group or forcibly transmit the population of gauze.
The Israeli military offensive has killed over 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, who does not distinguish civilians and fighters in its records. Israel says he killed over 17,000 fighters without giving evidence.
The offensive destroyed the huge areas of Gaza, reducing the entire neighborhood in the fields of ruins and bombed buildings. In its height, the war fought 90% of the Gaza population. Many returned to their homes to find anything left and no way of renewing.
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