Hamas violated its ceasefire agreement with Israel and returned an unidentified body instead of an Israeli hostage during a larger handover of remains on Thursday.
The Israel Defense Forces said early Friday local time it confirmed it had received the remains of hostages Kfir Bibas, who was 10 months old at the time of his death, and his brother Ariel Bibas, who was 4.
Both boys were “were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023,” according to the Israeli military.
A third body, initially presumed to be their mother, Shiri Bibas, 32, matched neither her identity nor that of any other hostage held by Hamas, according to the IDF.
“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” the military wrote in a statement on X. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”
Yarden Bibas, Shiri Bibas’s husband and the father of Kfir and Ariel, was released alive earlier this month.
On Thursday, the remains of Oded Lifshitz, an elderly peace activist from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were also returned to Israel.
The military said he was “murdered” in captivity by the group Islamic Jihad.
The handover of the hostage remains, as well as the explosions of three buses in Israel in a suspected terror attack, threaten to break the already fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect in January.
This is a breaking story. More to follow…
