Israel prepares to receive 6 more Gaza hostages as family confirms Shiri Bibas’ death
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Protesters at a rally in Tel Aviv calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in March 2024.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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JERUSALEM – Israel prepared on Feb 22 to receive six more hostages from Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, as a body handed over by Hamas hours earlier was confirmed to be that of hostage Shiri Bibas
The fragile truce in the war between Israel and Hamas militants had been threatened with derailment by the misidentification of a body released on Feb 20 as that of Ms Bibas, who was kidnapped with her two small sons and husband in the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023.
However, late on Feb 21, Hamas handed over another body, which her family said had been confirmed to be hers.
“Last night, our Shiri was returned home,” the family said in a statement, which added that she had been identified by Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine.
The six to be released on Feb 22, the last living hostages from a group of 33 due to be freed in the first stage of the ceasefire deal agreed in January, were expected to be handed over at around 8.30am local time (2.30pm Singapore time), according to Hamas officials.
Four of the hostages – Mr Eliya Cohen, 27; Mr Tal Shoham, 40; Mr Omer Shem Tov, 22; and Mr Omer Wenkert, 23 – were seized by Hamas gunmen during their October 2023 attack on Israel. Another two, Mr Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, and Mr Avera Mengistu, 39, have been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza separately under unexplained circumstances around a decade ago.
In return, Israel is expected to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in its jails in the latest stage of an exchange that has held up despite a series of problems that have come close to sinking it on different occasions.
Israel had accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by handing over an unidentified body instead of the remains of Ms Bibas, which were due to be returned along with the bodies of her two small sons.
Hamas said her remains appear to have been mixed up with other human remains recovered from the rubble after an Israeli air strike that it said killed her and her two sons in November 2023.
On Feb 21, 2025, the group handed over another body, which Israeli forensic officials were preparing to investigate to confirm the identity.
The Bibas family, kidnapped along with the father in the Oct 7 attack, has been an emblem of the trauma suffered by Israel on that day, and the misidentification of the remains of Ms Bibas, as well as the staged handover of their coffins by Hamas, outraged Israelis.
The Israeli military said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of 10-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel showed both had been deliberately killed by their captors.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to make Hamas “pay the full price” for failing to return the body, but held back from walking away from the ceasefire agreement, which took effect on Jan 19.
Hamas, which has itself accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire by blocking vital aid supplies into Gaza, nonetheless formally informed Israel of the names of the hostages to be released on Feb 22 in a sign that the handover would go ahead.
The ceasefire has brought a pause in the fighting, but prospects for a definitive end to the war remain unclear. Hamas, which killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages during its attack on Israel, has been at pains to demonstrate that it remains in control in Gaza despite heavy losses in the war.
The Israeli campaign killed at least 48,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble, leaving some hundreds of thousands in makeshift shelters and dependent on aid trucks.
Both sides have said they intend to start talks on a second stage
But hopes of a deal have been clouded by disagreements over the future of Gaza, which have been deepened by shock across the region over US President Donald Trump’s proposal to clear the enclave of Palestinians and develop it as a Riviera-style resort under American control. REUTERS
