Grief, outrage and confusion consumed Israel on Friday after its military said Hamas had failed to return the body of Shiri Bibas, the mother of the two youngest hostages taken captive Oct. 7, 2023.
While Hamas returned the bodies of her sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were just 4 years old and 9 months old when they were captured, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that identification efforts found the female remains belonged to an “anonymous body.”
Accusing Hamas of “an unimaginably cynical act,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday said Hamas had not returned “Shiri alongside her small children — these little angels — and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in the coffin.”
Later, Hamas’ media office said Bibas’ remains may have been “mixed” with others when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed her and her sons.
Israel has accused Hamas of murdering the Bibas family members in November 2023, the month after they were taken hostage.
Hamas also released the body of 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz on Thursday in a grisly ceremony that saw four black caskets placed on a stage against a backdrop of slogans which said that Israel had killed Shiri Bibas and her sons using “USA bombs.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the scenes in a post on X late Thursday. “Under international law, any handover of the remains of the deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families,” he wrote.
Netanyahu on Friday vowed to “act decisively to bring Shiri home,” along with the rest of the hostages. “We will ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and wicked violation of the agreement,” he said.
The incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire agreement reached with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators last month and backed by the United States.
But six living people, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Tal Shoham, Hisham Al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu, who are currently in Hamas captivity, are expected to be released Saturday.
Mengistu and Al-Sayed entered Gaza more than a decade ago and have been held by the militant group since then.
Their release will bring to an end the first phase of the current ceasefire deal and, with the second phase of the agreement yet to be finalized, the future of the truce is shrouded in uncertainty.
Calling Hamas’ apparent failure to return the body of Shira Bibas as promised a “serious violation,” far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on X on Friday that “the only solution is the destruction of Hamas.”
His comments came after a series of explosions on buses in a parking lot rocked central Israel on Thursday in what authorities suspected was a militant attack.
Israeli Police spokesman Haim Sargrof told Israeli TV that the explosives appeared to match those used in the occupied West Bank, though he declined to elaborate on why, The Associated Press reported.
The attack came as Israel continued to carry out a sweeping military assault in the northern West Bank, as part of the operation it has dubbed "Iron Wall." Israel has said it is aimed at dismantling militant groups and to prevent future attacks on the country.
The International Rescue Committee — a global aid organization —warned in a news release Thursday that the “ongoing military operations in the West Bank” had “displaced thousands, destroyed water networks, and restricted movement.”
Children were among those killed in the operations, it said.
It came after the United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said earlier this month that the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the West Bank’s north was escalating “at an alarming pace.”
