Hamas hands over remains of four dead Israeli hostages

Tel Aviv says one of the bodies returned not missing hostage

- ANDY GREGORY

Hamas has returned the bodies of four hostages, including the two youngest captives seized in its 7 October attack on Israel.

The Palestinian militants said the bodies of infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, along with their mother Shiri Bibas, were handed over yesterday under the ceasefire agreement reached last month.

The fourth body was said to be that of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he and his wife Yocheved were taken captive by Hamas during the militants’ cross-border incursion which sparked the war in Gaza 16 months ago.

Kfir was just nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden – who was returned to Israel in a hostage exchange earlier this month – was abducted at the kibbutz at Nir Oz, near the Gaza border.

Last night the Israeli military claimed one of those returned was not that of Shiri Bibas, and says it instead has received unidentified remains.

Authorities confirmed that two bodies released by Hamas had been identified as infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother, Ariel Bibas.

Hamas claimed in November 2023 that the family had been killed by Israeli airstrikes. But their deaths have never been confirmed by the Israeli authorities, and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.

“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, around a quarter of whose inhabitants were either killed or kidnapped on 7 October 2023.