TEL AVIV, Israel: Forensic scientists identified the remains of two Israeli child hostages handed over by Hamas but another body said to be their mother was “an anonymous, unidentified body,” the Israeli military said Friday.
The shock announcement regarding the mother, Shiri Bibas, came as a ceasefire that’s paused the fighting in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip remains shaky over a month after it began. Recovering the bodies of the Bibas family had been a major issue for the Israeli public, drawing flag-waving crowds along highways on a rainy day to honor the processional carrying the remains.
Central Israel rattled separately by a series of explosions Thursday on three parked buses, and the military restricted Palestinian movement and sealed off parts of the occupied West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement the Israeli military would “carry out an intensive operation against centers of terrorism” in the West Bank after the bus blasts, raising the specter of a further escalation there.
Hamas hands over four bodies
Hamas militants had turned over four bodies Thursday. One was identified as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted during the Hamas attack that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023.
The remains of the young brothers, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, were identified by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in collaboration with police and the family was notified, the Israeli military said in a statement. It said the boys were “brutally murdered” in captivity in November 2023, citing unspecified intelligence and forensics findings.
The identification process for the additional body determined it was not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas, or any other hostage, the Israeli military said.
“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” the military said. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”
Hamas did not immediately respond to Israel’s announcement that the body was not of the boys’ mother.
Israeli public mourns dead hostages
Hamas has said that all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes. But Netanyahu’s office said Thursday that Lifshitz was killed in captivity by the Islamic Jihad militant group. The Israeli military statement also said the boys had been “murdered.”
Militants who handed over the bodies displayed four black coffins on a stage in the Gaza Strip surrounded by banners, including one depicting Netanyahu as a vampire. On each coffin, a photo of one of the hostages was stapled to the side.
Large numbers of masked and armed militants looked on as the coffins were loaded onto Red Cross vehicles before being driven to Israeli forces. The military later held a small funeral ceremony, at the request of the families, before transferring the bodies to a laboratory in Israel for formal identification using DNA.
In Tel Aviv where the bodies were transported, a double rainbow unfolded across the sky just before sunset. Thousands of people gathered at the city’s Hostage Square and recited traditional mourning prayers. Some held orange balloons, in honor of the Bibas boys, and the crowd swelled after sundown as musicians performed subdued ballads, matching the nation’s grief.
“Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said. “On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.”
Lifshitz’s family said after the handover that his remains had been officially identified. His son, Yizhar, told an Israeli TV station that it had brought some closure to the family.
“On a certain level, it closes the small chance that we had thought about,” he said. “It is also closure that he will be buried back on the kibbutz. It’s a difficult day.”
Infant was the youngest taken hostage
Kfir Bibas, who at 9 months was the youngest hostage, was a red-headed infant with a toothless smile when militants stormed the family’s home on Oct. 7, 2023. His brother, Ariel, was 4. Video from that day showed a terrified Shiri swaddling the boys as militants led them into Gaza.
Her husband, Yarden Bibas, was taken separately and released this month.
Relatives in Israel have clung to hope, marking the boys’ birthdays.
A cousin of Shiri Bibas who lives in Buenos Aires, told the local Radio Con Vos station she has been reliving the trauma of the abduction. Romina Miasnik said she hoped her loved ones “can become a symbol of something new, of coexistence, of hatred no longer having a place.”
Supporters throughout Israel have worn orange — a reference to the two boys’ hair color — and a popular children’s song was written in their honor.
Like the Bibas family, Oded Lifshitz was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his wife, Yocheved, who was freed early in the war as an apparent humanitarian gesture.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 hostages, including about 30 children, in the Oct. 7 attack, in which they also killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
More than half the hostages, and most of the women and children, have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight and have recovered dozens of bodies of people killed in the initial attack or who died in captivity.
A devastating Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed over 48,200 Palestinians, local health officials there say, without distinguishing between combatants and civilians.
It’s not clear if the ceasefire will last
Hamas is set to free six living hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and says it will release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase. That will leave the militants with about 60 hostages, all men and about half believed to be dead.
Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he’s committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
Trump’s proposal to remove about 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so the US can own and rebuild it, which has been welcomed by Netanyahu but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, has thrown the ceasefire into further doubt.
Hamas could be reluctant to free more hostages if it believes that the war will resume with the goal of annihilating the group or forcibly transferring Gaza’s population.