JERUSALEM: Hamas on Friday said it had offered to hand over the bodies of a mother and her two sons — one of them a baby — in talks to extend a now-expired truce.
Shiri Bibas, her 10-month-old son Kfir and his four-year-old brother Ariel, along with their father Yarden, have become emblematic of the October 7 attacks due to the age of baby Kfir.
Earlier this week, Hamas’s armed wing announced that Shiri, Kfir and Ariel had been killed in an Israeli bombing before the now-lapsed truce went into effect — a claim Israel’s military has said it is investigating, but has yet to confirm.
Combat between Israel and Hamas resumed in the Gaza Strip Friday morning after an agreement could not be reached on prolonging the seven-day pause in fighting.
Under the terms of the temporary truce, Hamas had returned scores of Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners.
“Throughout the night, indirect negotiations unfolded to extend the truce,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement Friday.
“Hamas also offered to transfer the Bibas family’s bodies and release their father for their burial, along with two Zionist detainees,” it added.
Israeli authorities “remained unresponsive,” it said.
The Israeli prime minister’s office meanwhile told AFP “Israel will not address propaganda-based reports coming from Hamas.”
As of Thursday, reports of the deaths of the three Bibas family members remained unconfirmed, according to army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
The army has previously said “Hamas is wholly responsible for the security of all hostages.”
Government spokesman Eylon Levy on Friday blamed Hamas for the collapse of the truce, accusing it of “having failed to provide a list of more hostages for release.”
He said Hamas was still holding 137 hostages taken on October 7, including the Bibas family.
The family were among the roughly 240 hostages dragged back to Gaza after militants streamed into Israel in an attack that left 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s ensuing war against the group has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run government in Gaza.
Hamas says offered to hand over remains of hostage baby, family
https://arab.news/5d739
Hamas says offered to hand over remains of hostage baby, family
- “Throughout the night, indirect negotiations unfolded to extend the truce,” the Palestinian militant group said
- “Hamas also offered to transfer the Bibas family’s bodies and release their father for their burial, along with two Zionist detainees”
UN force says Israeli tank fired near peacekeepers in Lebanon
- Under the November 2024 truce, Israel was to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, but it has kept them in five areas it deems strategic and carries out regular strikes on Lebanon, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives
BEIRUT: The UN Interim Force in Lebanon said an Israeli tank fired near its peacekeepers on Monday, and warned that such attacks were becoming “disturbingly common.”
UNIFIL has repeatedly reported Israeli fire near or toward its personnel in recent months, and less than two weeks ago, said gunfire from an Israeli position hit close to peacekeepers twice.
“UNIFIL peacekeepers observed two Merkava tanks move” from an Israeli army position inside Lebanese territory “further into Lebanon” on Monday, the force said in a statement.
UNIFIL has acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon for decades, and recently has been working with Lebanon’s army to support a year-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Under the November 2024 truce, Israel was to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, but it has kept them in five areas it deems strategic and carries out regular strikes on Lebanon, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives.
“The peacekeepers requested through liaison channels that the tanks stop their activity,” the statement said.
Later, “one of the tanks fired three shells from its main gun, with two impacts approximately 150 meters away from the peacekeepers,” UNIFIL said, adding that “as the peacekeepers moved away for safety, they were continuously tracked with a laser from the tanks.”
The statement reported no casualties but noted UNIFIL had informed the Israeli army of its activities in the area in advance.
“Attacks like these on identifiable peacekeepers ... are becoming disturbingly common,” the statement said, urging a stop to such incidents.
It called them “a serious violation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and forms the basis of the current truce.
Under heavy US pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Beirut has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and last week, Lebanon’s army said it had finished doing so in the area near the border.
UNIFIL’s final mandate ends this year, and the force is to leave Lebanon in 2027.
