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CV NEWS FEED // The bodies of kidnapped Israeli children Ariel and Kfir Bibas have been returned to Israel, and military officials have confirmed they were murdered while in captivity.
Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the body of their mother, Shiri Bibas, remain unknown. Hamas claimed to have returned the body, but Israel Defense Forces (IDF) analysis revealed that the body was actually that of a Gazan woman instead, according to a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to a Feb. 21 report from CNN, Hamas is sending another coffin said to contain the remains of Shiri Bibas. Israeli authorities confirmed that the Red Cross is bringing the body to a forensic laboratory to be identified.
The IDF stated that forensic analysis indicates that Hamas killed the children shortly after abducting them.
“We can confirm that baby Kfir Bibas, aged just ten months old, and his older brother Ariel, aged 4, were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza, no later than November, 2023,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
The Bibas family was taken hostage during Hamas’ October 7, 2023, assault on Kibbutz Nir Oz, which resulted in widespread casualties and kidnappings. Shiri, 32, and her two sons became symbols of the hostage crisis as their images were widely shared in international campaigns urging for their release, Reuters reported.
In November 2023, Hamas claimed that the children and their mother had died in an Israeli airstrike, but they failed to provide any evidence to support the assertion.
“Contrary to Hamas’s lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike,” Hagari said. “Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by terrorists in cold blood. The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys. They killed them with their bare hands. Afterwards, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities.”
Following the handover of the bodies, Netanyahu said that the entire nation is grieving with the Bibas family and vowed to investigate the case of the mother.
“In an unspeakably cynical manner, [Hamas] 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.
According to the prime minister, this constitutes a violation of the current ceasefire agreement.
“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 said.
The incident has further strained ceasefire negotiations. Hamas had previously indicated willingness to release hostages in exchange for a cessation of hostilities.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman emeritus of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, condemned the nature of Hamas’ handover of the bodies.
“‘Evil’ doesn’t even begin to describe Hamas’ parade last night, in which they traipsed the bodies of two sweet, innocent children, their mother, and an 83-year-old humanitarian around Gaza with sickening propaganda images,” McCaul said in a Feb. 20 press release. “Hamas terrorists are truly vile. But I am confident their latest act of savagery will only serve to restore the moral clarity Americans had on October 7 and further unite the world around Hamas’ demise.”
