Two tiny red -haired boys captured the hearts of the Israelites and became a symbols of a long and emotional campaign for the release of hostages seized during the Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Thursday, under the gray, stormy sky, the anxious nation marked the unofficial day of mourning after Hamas handed over Three black coffins for which the group said the remains were Ariel Bibas, who was only 4 years old when he was trapped in Gaza’s belt; His Baby brother, Kfir Bibas, who was not even 9 months old at the time; And their mother Shiri Bibas, who was 32 years old.
The fourth coffin wore the remains of Odeed Lifshitz, the Oktogenar Santa, a peace activist and the founder of the pastoral Israel The village of Nir OzNear the border with Gaza, where he and the Bibas family stayed.
Everyone was alive when they took themselves. And later it would be revealed that only three of the four were actually returned.
On a grotesque handover of handover in Gaza on Thursday morning, with the voice of music that blew up in the background, the coffins were exposed to the podium with pictures from family photos used in Israel and for posters with hostages: Ariel in a little white polo T -shirt; Kfir with a wide, toothless tooth that tightened a light pink toy; And Shiri Bibas, smiling and glittering before the family world fell.
Masked people seemed to have mixed children’s pictures and names.
In the early hours of Friday morning, the Israeli army announced in a statement that the remains of Ariel and Kfir were positively identified by the Israeli national center of forensic medicine and the Israeli police.
Mr. Lifshitz’s body was positively identified earlier on Thursday.
But in a shocking and intestinal turnaround, the army said the identification process found that the additional body was not received by the Shiri Bibas and that no match was found for any other hostage. “This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the army said, calling the obviously Russians “with the violation of the greatest seriousness of” Hamas’ agreement on the interruption of the fire with Israel.
The Revelation, which came as most Israelites probably slept, will probably be further jerking the ground, threatening the cessation of fire and extend the collective agony surrounding the tragedy of Bibas.
Yarden Bibas, husband of Mrs. Bibas and Children’s Father, were abducted separately during the October 7 attacks, bleeding from the early head. He was released Live this month as part of the interruption of fire between Israel and Hamas, which entered into force in January.
But the fate of the rest of his family was tortured by the Israelites, undergoing what many considered here the cruelty of Hamas. Mrs. Bibas older parents were also killed in an attack in October 2023.
“Dear citizens of Israel, today we are all united from the sadness that is too heavy to bear,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, in a gloomy message to a painful nation. “Today, every home in Israel worships his head.”
A month after the war began with the Hamas attack, the armed wing of the group, Qassama Brigade, claimed that Mrs. Bibas and her two children were killed in the Israeli air attack. There were fears in Israel when they were not among other mothers and children in captivity who were released during the week stopped by fire that month.
But the Israeli authorities did not confirm their death, let alone circumstances, saying that there was a “serious concern” because of the fate of the hostages.
The relatives kept hope until the very end.
After Hamas announced on Tuesday that he would publish the remains of Bibases, the family expressed anger over early eulogization in Mrs. Bibas and children’s newspaper media before Israel even found that they had been killed.
“If we receive devastating news, it must come through the appropriate official channels after all the identification procedures have been completed,” the statement said on Wednesday.
The statement of the Israeli army on Friday says that the available intelligence and forensic discoveries indicated that two Bibas boys were “brutally killed by terrorists in captivity in 2023” without elaboration. The Israeli government did not immediately provide details about the cause of Mr. Lifshitz’s death, but said Islamic jihad “was killed in captivity,” a smaller Palestinian armed group that held numerous hostages. Hamas claimed that Mr. Lifshitz was also killed in an Israeli air attack. None of the claims could have been independently checked.
Hamas handed the bodies as part of a series of negotiating exchanges in the first phase of the fire interruption agreement. In recent weeks, he has published 19 living Israeli hostages.
The agreement provides for the publication of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,500 Palestinian closed in Israel during the first phase, which, by prohibition, will expire in early March.
The Israeli government announced last month that Hamas provided a list indicating that 25 of 33 hostages were alive and that eight were killed.
About 1,200 people were killed in an attack on Hamas 2023, and more than 250 abducted, according to Israel. The Nir Oz was one of the most severely affected communities, with about a quarter of 400 inhabitants or killed or taken hostages. Kfir was the youngest who was taken away.
The attack encouraged Israel to announce the war of Hamas and attacked Gaza in a 15-month military campaign that killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and fighters, and most of the coastal enclave in the ruins.
On Thursday, groups of Israeli stood in the rain and held quiet vigil along the route, while four coffins were transferred to a convoy from Gaza to the National Forensic Medicine Center in Tel Aviv.
Eylon Keshet, Mr. Bibasa’s cousin, described Ariel in November 2023. As a boy who liked to be the center of attention and playing with playing tractors and cars. Kfir, he said, was a “cold” baby who had just started eating solid food.
The forum of family with hostages, an organization that is advocating for hostages and their families, described Mrs. Bibas in a statement as “a dedicated mother and an accountant, known for his boundless kindness.”
“They were not just names,” the forum said about the late hostages, adding, “They were loved people, with the families who nurtured them, with dreams and future stolen from them.”
