The Israeli armed forces accused the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the early hours of this morning of "barbarically murdering" Ariel and Kfir Bibas, four years and eight and a half months old, during their captivity in the Gaza Strip, as well as of not handing over to Israel the body of their mother, Siri Bibas, but "an unknown person," on Thursday.
“According to the assessment” of forensic doctors and “based on the information we have and the forensic findings,” Ariel and Kfir Bibas “were brutally murdered during their capture in November 2023 by terrorists,” the Israeli army said via X.
Hamas says Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged four years and 8,5 months respectively when they were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, were killed in Israeli shelling.
The children's father, Jarden Bibas, who was kidnapped and held separately, was released earlier this month.
Furthermore, the body of the woman handed over yesterday is not that of their mother Siri Bibas, nor has it been identified as belonging to any other Israeli hostage. It is the body of an "unknown", the Israeli armed forces added, denouncing a "flagrant violation" of the ceasefire agreement signed with Hamas.
"We demand that Hamas hand over (the body belonging to) Siri Biba and all the hostages," they stressed.
Hamas on Thursday handed over the bodies of four people to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), which then handed them over to the Israeli army. The fourth body was confirmed to be that of Oded Lifsitz, 83 years old on the day she was abducted, during Hamas' unprecedented raid on southern Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, early yesterday morning, armed Hamas fighters in hoods displayed four black coffins on a platform, each bearing a photo of one of the Israeli hostages. Above them, a banner depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire.
This staging caused outrage in Israel and an international outcry. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that his country was "furious", UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk described the procession of the dead as "cruel and inhumane treatment", which is prohibited by international law, and German diplomacy spoke of images that cause "unbearable pain".
Source: protothema
