Gaza [Palestine], February 21: Hamas has handed over the bodies of an Israeli woman, her two young children and an elderly man who were taken captive during the October 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Hamas staged a public handover ceremony in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Thursday, displaying four coffins on a stage in front of a poster depicting the likeness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fangs and blood on his face. Masked Hamas fighters then carried the coffins from the stage and handed them over to the Red Cross.
The bodies that were handed over included Israeli infant Kfir Bibas, his four-year-old brother Ariel, their mother Shiri Bibas, and a fourth captive, 83-year-old Oded Lifschitz.
The Bibas brothers, the youngest captives taken on October 7, have become symbols of national anguish for many Israelis. Hamas has maintained that they were killed in an Israeli air strike during the war, during which Israeli forces were responsible for the deaths of numerous captives held by Palestinian armed groups.
"Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts - the hearts of an entire nation - lie in tatters," said Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
A Hamas spokesman said all four were alive before the "Zionist occupation aircraft deliberately bombed the locations where they were being held".
Hamas said in a statement it "preserved the lives of the occupation prisoners", provided them with what it could, and "treated them humanely, but their [Israel's] army killed them along with their captors".
"Criminal Netanyahu is crying today over the bodies of his prisoners who returned to him in coffins, in a blatant attempt to evade responsibility for their killing in front of his audience," Hamas said.
While addressing the families of the killed Israeli captives, it said: "We would have preferred your sons to return to you alive, but your army and government leaders chose to kill them instead of bringing them back."
The return of the bodies is part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that will also see hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli jails, where allegations of abuse and torture are widespread and where many have been kept in detention without any charge or trial.
Thursday's handover of bodies will be followed by the return of six living captives on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians, expected to be women and minors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war. Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas agreed to release 33 captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first phase of an agreement intended to pave the way towards ending the war.
Source: Qatar Tribune
