By Chris Summers
Contributing Writer
Hamas has released the bodies of four Israeli hostages — including a mother and her two children — after parading their coffins under a banner that sought to blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for their deaths.
Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, were abducted, along with 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz when Hamas terrorists crossed the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Kfir, who was 9 months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive.
Hamas has claimed all four were killed along with their guards during an Israeli airstrike.
The children’s father, Yarden Bibas, was returned earlier this month as part of an exchange of live hostages for prisoners.
‘Day Of Grief’
Netanyahu said in a brief video statement Thursday would be “a very difficult day for the state of Israel. An upsetting day, a day of grief.”
Hamas has turned every hostage release into an opportunity for propaganda and on Thursday morning they displayed the four black coffins on a stage in the Gaza Strip under a huge banner, which depicted Netanyahu as a vampire.
Wording, in English, under the banner, said Netanyahu had killed the hostages with missiles from his “warplanes.”
At the handover site just outside Khan Younis, masked Hamas gunmen then placed the coffins in Red Cross vehicles, where they were covered with white sheets and driven away to be handed over to Israel.
The United Nations rights chief said that parading of bodies in Gaza is abhorrent.
“Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
The Israeli military later confirmed it had received the coffins and said formal identification of the remains using DNA would take place and was expected to take up to two days.
The Bibas family said in a statement Wednesday it would wait for “identification procedures” before acknowledging Shiri and the children were dead.
Supporters throughout Israel have worn orange — a reference to the boys’ ginger hair — in solidarity with the Bibas family, and a children’s song was written in their honor.
Lifshitz was also abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his wife Yocheved, who was freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
He was a journalist, who had campaigned for peace between Arabs and Jews.
Israeli television channels did not broadcast the handover of the bodies but in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, a large screen showed a compilation of photos and videos of the Lifshitz and Bibas families, including baby Kfir, and the family dressed up in Batman costumes.
Residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, in southern Israel, where the four were kidnapped, waved Israeli flags outside their temporary home, an hour north of the kibbutz.
The four are the first deceased hostages to be handed over since the cease-fire between Hamas and Israel began last month.
In recent weeks 24 living hostages have been released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of whom have been convicted of murder.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and then abducted 251 hostages, including 30 children. They were taken back inside the Gaza Strip and kept captive, often in tunnels beneath the territory.
More than half the hostages have been released, and Israeli forces rescued eight alive, and recovered the bodies of many others.
Live Hostage Handover Saturday
Hamas is set to free six more live hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and says it will release four more bodies next week, completing the cease-fire’s first phase.
That will leave Hamas in control of around 60 hostages, all men, many of whom are believed to be dead.
Hamas negotiators have refused to release the final hostages without a permanent cease-fire and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu, who has the full support of the Trump administration, says he is committed to destroying Hamas’ military capabilities. But he also wants the return of the final hostages.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza says 48,000 Palestinians have died in the territory since Oct. 7, 2023.
Last month President Donald Trump suggested the United States take over the Gaza Strip, remove 2 million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries, and then demolish and rebuild the area.
Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have rejected Trump’s proposal.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
