Israel is accusing Hamas this Friday of having given him the body of a stranger in place of that of Shiri Bibas, the mother of Ariel and Kfir. According to the Hebrew state, the latter were killed during their captivity.
The bodies of four hostages were given to Israel on Thursday, February 20. Hamas exhibited four black coffins on a stage mounted in Khan Younès, in the south of the Gaza Strip, before handing them over to the agents of the International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR). The coffins were brought by hooded and armed fighters from Hamas.
But on the night of Thursday to Friday, February 21, the Israeli army indicated that the body of Shiri Bibas did not appear among the remains given by Hamas, accusing the Palestinian Islamist movement of having given him a body of a stranger to The Place de l’Otage. The bodies of the two children: KFIR and Ariel Bibas were well identified, like that of Oded Lifschitz. The Hebrew State already requires that the body of Shiri Bibas be returned: “We ask Hamas to make Shiri Bibas as well as all the people kidnapped”, writes on Telegram the spokesman of the Israeli army Avichay Adraeee .
This Friday, Israel also accuses Hamas of having killed Ariel and Kfir Bibas during their captivity and not in bombing as the Palestinian movement affirms. “According to the assessment of the competent authorities and on the basis of the information available and the diagnostic indicators, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists,” said, still on Telegram, the spokesperson of Tsahal.
Thursday, on each funeral safe, the Palestinian Islamist group had hung the photo of the hostage to be returned to the Israeli authorities. These were photos of the three members of the Bibas family: Maman Shiri and her two children Ariel and Kfir, who were aged 4 and 8 and a half at the time of their kidnapping by Hamas, and Oded Liffshitz , 83 years old during her kidnapping. After a simulacrum of funeral ceremony under the banners of Hamas, whose images were broadcast by the Palestinian group but not relayed by the Palestinian authorities, the remains of the three hostages and that of a stranger, which, according to the autopsy, is not that of the mother of the two children of the Bibas family, left the Gaza Strip in the vehicles of the Red Cross.
Uncertainties on the death of the Bibas family
All members of the Bibas family had been removed by Hamas during the attack on October 7, 2023 in the Kibbutz of Nir Or, near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Bibas children were the youngest hostages held by Hamas and their captivity aroused strong concerns. Shiri and his two children had been retained by the Islamist group for more than 16 months, when they should have been among the first hostages released during the Trier, that of November 2023 when other children captured by Hamas were given to Israel and the one that has been underway since January 19.
Their absence among the released hostages fueled the fears concerning their fate and their survival. A fear that worsened on February 1 during the release of the first hostage men, including Yarden Bibas, the father of this family. The man was removed at a different time from the rest of his family and was not selected in the same place as his children during his captivity.
The four members of the Bibas family appeared on the list of 33 liberable hostages during the first phase of the current truce in Gaza. If Israel announced before the first exchanges of January, that eight of these people had died in captivity, the government did not specify the names of the deceased. Nothing indicates that the Israeli government had had confirmation of the death of the Bibas family members or not
Hamas had announced the death of Shiri Bibas and his two children in an Israeli strike in November 2023, a month after the attack and the numerous hostage kidnappings. The Hebrew state had never confirmed the information. Until the announcement of the discount of the bivas children and their mother, relatives of the family said they cling to “hope” to see them alive with the Times of Israel.