This is a developing story.
The Israeli military has confirmed that the two deceased children released by Hamas Thursday are the hostages Ariel and Kfir Bibas. But the military said that a third body is not that of their mother, Shiri.
The military said the country’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, in collaboration with police, could not identify the body.
“During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”
On Friday, Hamas acknowledged that there may have been an “error or overlap in the bodies” and said it would investigate. “We will examine these claims with complete seriousness” and will “announce the results clearly,” the group said, according to CNN.
In a statement on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that “Hamas will pay the full price” for breaking the ceasefire deal. He called the return of the wrong body a “brazen violation of the agreement.”
“In an indescribably cynical way, they did not return Shiri along with her children, the little angels,” Netanyahu said. “And they put in the coffin the body of a Gazan woman. We will act with determination to bring Shiri home, together with all of our hostages, living and dead alike.”
The Israeli military statement, issued in the early hours of Friday morning in Israel, was the latest shock in a whirlwind of strife and tragedy for Israel. And it came as Israel is preparing for the release of six living hostages on Saturday.
Shiri Bibas and her two young sons Kfir and Ariel were taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and became faces of the captives’ plight and the movement to free them. Their husband and father, Yarden Bibas, was taken captive separately and released alive earlier this month.
Hamas had said in November 2023 that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir had been killed in an Israeli airstrike; Israel investigated that claim but had not confirmed it. Now, the IDF statement said Hamas murdered the boys in November 2023.
“IDF representatives informed the Bibas family that their loved ones, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, have been identified,” the statement said. “According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.”
This week, Hamas announced that it would be returning their bodies to Israel. On Wednesday, the Israeli government confirmed it would be receiving their bodies. But shortly afterward, relatives of the Bibas family said they had not given permission for the government to announce that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were dead.
Four coffins returned to Israel on Thursday morning. One of the bodies was quickly confirmed to be hostage Oded Lifshitz, 84. The remaining three were widely assumed to belong to Shiri and her children, and people across Israel and the world publicly mourned their deaths.
Now, the IDF is demanding that Hamas release Shiri Bibas.
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