Hamas will send the bodies of two children and their mother back to Israel
Hamas killed two-year-old Kfir Bibas and five-year-old Ariel Bibas, the youngest hostages it took during its October 7 attack on Israel, according to a Hamas announcement on Tuesday. The terror group will release their bodies back to Israel on Thursday.
The Bibas children’s mother, Shiri Bibas, was also killed in Hamas captivity and will be returned to Israel alongside her children, the New York Post reported. The father, Yarden Bibas, was released alive two weeks after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal took effect on January 19.
The terror group claimed in November 2023 that the children and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike, a claim that an Israeli official at the time called “psychological terror,” according to CNN.
Israel has not yet commented on Hamas’s announcement about the Bibases, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office only confirming Tuesday that Hamas will release “four slain hostages” on Thursday, “six living hostages” on Saturday, and four more slain hostages next week. Israel will continue releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks.
The hostages are the last group set to be freed under the ceasefire’s initial phase. While Israel and Hamas are working on negotiating the second phase, Hamas has already demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to the Associated Press.
Hamas agreed to the ceasefire last month after President Donald Trump reiterated his warning that “all hell will break out” if the hostages held in Gaza were not freed by the time he took office on January 20. The Biden administration had failed to secure a lasting ceasefire deal.
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