Family confirms Shiri Bibas’ death as Gaza hostage-prisoner swop set to go ahead

JERUSALEM – Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas’ family confirmed her death on Feb 22 after new remains were returned from Gaza, as the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange under a fragile Gaza ceasefire was set to go ahead.

The Israeli kibbutz community of Nir Oz also announced Ms Bibas’ death after the International Committee of the Red Cross said it transferred more human remains to Israeli authorities without saying whose they were.

“After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister, and all her family to rest,” the Bibas family said in a statement on Instagram.

“Despite our fears for their fate, we kept hoping we would get to hug them again, and now we are broken and grieving,” the family said.

“For 16 months, we sought certainty, and now that we have it, there is no comfort in it, but we hope for the beginning of a closure.”

On Feb 20, Hamas handed over four bodies, saying they were of Ms Bibas, her two young sons, and an elderly hostage.

While the remains of her two sons and the elderly hostage were identified positively, Israeli authorities said the fourth body was not that of Ms Bibas, sparking anger and grief across the country.

But on Feb 21, Hamas – which blamed a possible “mix-up” of bodies – handed over new remains to the Red Cross, which now have been identified to be that of Ms Shiri Bibas.

Hamas has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed Bibas and her boys – Kfir and Ariel – early in the war.

The Bibas family became symbols of the hostage ordeal suffered by Israel since the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.

Ms Bibas was kidnapped along with her sons and her husband, Mr Yarden Bibas, during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

Mr Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said “unfortunate mistakes” could occur, especially as Israeli bombing had mixed the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians, thousands of whom were still buried in the rubble.

“We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign,” he said in a statement.

The failure to hand over the correct body and the staged public handover of the four coffins on Feb 20 caused outrage in Israel and drew a threat of retaliation from Mr Netanyahu.

“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages - both living and dead - and

ensure Hamas pays the full price

for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he said in a video statement.

Hamas said in November 2023 that the children and their mother had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Mr Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Mr Netanyahu “bears full responsibility for killing her and her children”.

But the Israeli military said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of the Bibas children indicated that they were deliberately killed by their captors. Chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the boys were killed by the militants “with their bare hands”, but gave no details.

The UN Human Rights Office said it had no information of its own on the hostage deaths and called for an effective investigation into the causes.

“The return of the remains of the deceased is a basic humanitarian goal,” the office said.

The incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire agreement reached with US backing and with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators in January.

Saturday exchange

Six living hostages were due for release on Feb 22 in exchange for 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to Hamas, and the start of negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire was expected in the coming days.

“Hamas must return the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire - the living and the deceased,” Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said in a statement on social media platform X. “They have to bring Shiri back, and they have to release the 6 living hostages expected tomorrow.”

Mr Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had been officially informed of the names of the six hostages to be released, which Hamas sources said was expected at around 8.30am (0630 GMT).

As the tension over the Gaza ceasefire rose, Mr Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to intensify operations in another Palestinian territory, the occupied West Bank, after a number of explosions blew up buses standing empty in their depots near Tel Aviv.

No casualties were reported but the explosions were a reminder of the campaign of suicide attacks on public transport that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

‘They make a joke of us’

Both Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused the other of ceasefire violations, with Hamas threatening to delay the release of hostages over what it said was Israel’s refusal to allow housing materials and other aid into Gaza, a charge Israel denied.

The Red Cross told Reuters it was “concerned and unsatisfied” that the handover of the bodies had not been conducted privately and in a dignified manner. “It’s like they make a joke of us,” said 75-year-old Israeli Ilana Caspi. “We are so in grief and this is even more.”

One of the main groups representing hostage families said it was “horrified and devastated” by the news that Ms Bibas’ body had not been returned, but called for the ceasefire to continue to bring back all 70 hostages still in Gaza.

“Save them from this nightmare,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

Despite the outrage over Ms Bibas, there was no indication that Israel would not take part in talks over a second phase of the ceasefire deal.

The Israel Hayom newspaper reported that Israeli negotiators were considering seeking an extension of the 42-day ceasefire, to delay moving to a second phase, which would involve talks over hard-to-resolve issues including an end to the war and the future of Hamas in Gaza. REUTERS