21/02/2025 07:28
The Guardian
Israel has demanded the return of Shiri Bibas after it said testing showed that one of the four bodies released by Hamas did not belong to any other hostageFull report: Israeli military accuses Hamas of ‘serious violation’, saying Shiri Bibas not among returned hostagesIsraeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has condemned Hamas after the Israeli military said one of the bodies released by the militant group did not belong to Shiri Bibas or any of the captives held in Gaza, accusing it of violating the ceasefire.“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds,” he said in video statement.One of the four bodies Hamas handed over on Thursday is not that of Shiri Bibas, the Israeli military has said, calling it a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that is already fragile.The military confirmed on Friday that two of the bodies returned to Israel belonged to Bibas’ children, Ariel and Kfir, but said that during the identification process it was determined the additional body received was not Shiri Bibas and no match was found for any other hostage. “This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the Israel Defense Forces said. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.” There was no immediate response from Hamas.Bibas and her children became a symbol of the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023. The militant group has said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the war. However, the IDF said on Friday that they had been murdered in Gaza, posting on X: “According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.”The IDF’s statement Friday’s statement came hours after Israeli prime Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to conduct an “intense operation” against “terror hubs” in the occupied West Bank after a series of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a city outside Tel Aviv, that authorities said was a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported. The IDF said it had been decided to reinforce Israeli troops with three battalions in the central West Bank. Continue reading...
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