Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate after discovering that one of the four hostages returned by Hamas was incorrectly identified.
This was after the government conducted a forensic analysis of the bodies who were taken alive by the Hamas militant group during the war but were returned as part of the ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu promised to strike back after the Israeli officials positively identified three of the returned bodies as Lifschitz and the Bibas children but said the fourth was not that of their mother nor any other hostage,
“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds. Not only did they kidnap the father, Yarden Bibas, but the young mother, Shiri, and their two small babies. In an unspeakably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri to her little children, the little angels, and they put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin.” Netanyahu said in a statement Friday.
“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages, both living and dead, and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he added.
Also condemning the Islamist group’s action, the Defense accused Hamas of committing a “very serious violation” of the current ceasefire agreement.
The IDF, citing “the assessment of the professional authorities,” said Ariel and Kfir Bibas “were brutally murdered in captivity in November 2023 by terrorists.” Their father, 35-year-old Yarden Bibas, was also kidnapped during the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but he survived and was freed earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Hamas has defended this claim in a statement, noting it “will examine these claims very seriously” and “will announce the results clearly. while calling for the return of the body that Israel said was that of a Palestinian woman.
“We point out the possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies, which may be the result of the occupation targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians,” Hamas added.
The Director-general of Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, said that the remains of Shiri Bibas were mixed with other human remains beneath the rubble of the place where she was being held in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes “deliberately” destroyed the area, “killing her and her children.”
“Netanyahu himself is the one who issued the orders for the direct and merciless bombing, and he is the one who bears full responsibility for killing her and her children horrifically and brutally,” Al-Thawabta added, noting that the Israeli military has killed more than 30,000 Palestinian women and children in Gaza since the current war began.
Hamas is expected to free another six living hostages on Saturday followed by four more bodies next week as part of the agreed terms for the first phase of the ceasefire, which began on Jan. 19 and is supposed to last 42 days.
Negotiations to set the terms for the second phase have not started, but Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday that mediators are pushing to have talks begin as soon as possible to allow enough time for discussion before it begins. Hamas has accused Israel of avoiding talks and says it’s ready to negotiate.
