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Hamas said on Thursday that he had handed over the remains of four Israeli hostages, including a newborn baby, in a gloomy exchange that signaled progress according to a poignant agreement on the termination of fire.
It will take time to the Israeli army to confirm the identities of the deceased, but Hamas said that the brothers – Kfir, the newborn, and Ariel, 4 at the time they were taken to hostage – and their mother Shiri Bibas (32), as well as 83 years old Peace activists Odeed Lifschitz.
Israeli defense forces have confirmed that four cases of the late hostages have been transferred to the Red Cross International Committee in Gaza. Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a dedication agreement.
Hamas has promised to release six living hostages On the eve of the schedule on Saturday, in the hope that the teaching negotiations will focus on converting a temporary truce into a permanent truce. Dozens of hostages, living and dead, remain in captivity in Gaza.
Taking Bibas Family – whose father was published alive on February 1st in the first phase of Swapova – became a particularly colorful demonstration of Hamas’s brutality in the attack on October 7, 2023. To southern Israel War in Gaza.
In a propaganda video posted by Hamas, Shiri wore children in his arms as armed fighters took them out of Nir Oz Kibbutz. Pictures of children have become ubiquitous on Israeli posters looking for hostage release.
Lifschitz and his wife, 86-year-old Yocheved, were also taken from their homes near the Bibas family. Yocheved only let Hamas only 16 days in war.
The circumstances around the death of Bibas remain uncertain. Since the end of 2023, Hamas claimed they had been killed in the Israeli air strike without giving evidence.
The militant group repeated this claim on Thursday, handing over the bodies to the Red Cross under the sign that blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “rockets and Zionist war planes” for their death.
The IDF did not comment on the case, but a few families were informed that their loved ones may be inadvertently killed by bombing Gaza, according to interviews in Israeli media.
“A day of hitting, a day of sadness,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday night. “We bring home four of our loved ones, the deceased.”
Gaza officials estimate that about 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed by Israeli attack, which destroyed most of the besieged enclaves. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas’s cross -border raid, and about 250 hostages were taken, according to Israeli officials.
The edition on Thursday was the first of the deceased hostages and it came in the fifth week Six weeks of interrupting fire Agreed last month, according to which Israel released 985 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 19 living Israeli hostages, the Red Cross states.
The vast majority of Palestinians were detained in Israel without trial, while dozens served life sentences after being convicted in military prisons for the murder of Israeli.
The Israeli army has enabled thousands of trucks with humanitarian aid in Gaza, including a small amount of heavy machines and mobile homes that start this week.
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas who aimed at securing a permanent truce continued in Cairo, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the USA. But the contract would require Israel to withdraw his army from Gaza and Hamas to release the remaining 60 hostages, many of whom are afraid of the dead.
The ruling Netanyahua coalition depends on the support of the extremely right -wing political party that is bitterly opposed He vowed to continue the attack To the hamas.
The militant group seems to have threatened to live hostages during the surrender on Thursday, showing a sign that read: “The return of war = the return of your prisoners in the coffins.”
Hamas is known to have executed at least six prisoners last year after suspected of an Israeli rescue operation in the tunnels they held.
At the time, the IDF said that no such surgery was ongoing and that it ran into the recently killed hostages in a regular patrol.
