By James Mackenzie, Maayan Lubell and Alexander Cornwell, Reuters
Palestinian Hamas militants gather at the site of the handing over of the bodies of four Israeli hostages in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza on February 20, 2025. Photo: AFP / Abood Abusalama
The Israeli military said on Friday that one of the bodies released by Hamas did not belong to any of the hostages held in Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating an already shaking ceasefire.
Two of the bodies were identified as infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, while a third body that was supposed to be their mother, Shiri, was found not to match with any hostage and remained unidentified, the military said.
"This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organisation, which is obliged under the agreement to return four deceased hostages," the military said, in a statement, demanding the return of Shiri and all hostages.
The family of hostage Oded Lifshitz, said in a statement that his body had been formally identified.
There was no immediate reaction from Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier vowed revenge on Hamas after the group released the remains of what it said were four hostages, including that of Kfir and Ariel, the youngest of those abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack.
Palestinian militants handed over four black coffins in a carefully orchestrated public display, with dozens of armed Hamas militants and crowds of Palestinians gathering to watch.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk criticised the handoff, saying that the parading of bodies was abhorrent and cruel and that it flew in the face of international law.
"Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families," he said in a statement.
Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by.
"We stand here together, with a broken heart, the sky is also crying with us and we pray to see better days," said one woman, who gave her name only as Efrat.
In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, in a public square, opposite Israel's defence headquarters, at what has come to be known as Hostages Square.
"Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts - the hearts of an entire nation - lie in tatters," said President Isaac Herzog.
An Israeli cries upon the arrival of the convoy of vehicles transporting the bodies of the four Israeli hostages handed over by Hamas, in Tel Aviv on February 20, 2025. Photo: AFP / Jack Guez
Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas in a recorded address released after the remains of the hostages were handed over, saying "the four coffins" obliged Israel to ensure "more than ever" that there was no repeat of the October 7 attack.
"Our loved ones' blood is shouting at us from the soil and is obliging us to settle the score with the despicable murderers, and we will," he said.
Israeli officials have repeatedly asserted that Hamas would be destroyed over the course of the 16-month-old conflict, and that the roughly 250 hostages abducted during the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel would be returned home.
During Thursday's handover, one militant stood beside a poster of a man standing over coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. It read "The Return of the War = The Return of your Prisoners in Coffins".
The purported remains of the boys, their mother Shiri Bibas and a fourth hostage, Oded Lifshitz, were handed over under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
A collage of posters showing photos of Israelis Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were held in the Gaza Strip after the 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas militants. Photo: AFP
Family 'a symbol'
Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza on 7 October.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but their deaths were never confirmed by Israeli authorities and even at the last minute, some refused to accept they were dead.
"Shiri and the kids became a symbol," said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, which lost around a quarter of its inhabitants, either killed or kidnapped, during the 7 October assault. "I still hope that they will be alive."
Yarden Bibas was returned in an earlier exchange of hostages for prisoners this month. But the family said this week their "journey is not over" until they received final confirmation of what happened to the boys and their mother.
"We wake up to a difficult morning for all of us. A morning that sharpens the cruelty of our enemies and the justice of our determined war against them until they are destroyed from the face of the earth," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on the X social media platform.
At the handover site, a large poster was hung up, depicting Netanyahu as a vampire standing over images of the four hostages. "The War Criminal Netanyahu & His Nazi Army Killed Them with Missiles from Zionist Warplanes," the poster read.
Following the handover, the remains will be moved into coffins draped with the Israeli flag and an army rabbi will preside over a short ceremony. They will then be taken into Israel to the national forensic institute to be identified, a process that could take a few hours or even a few days.
Only after identification will there be a formal announcement of their deaths and a funeral.
The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.
Despite accusations on both sides of ceasefire breaches, the fragile agreement that took effect on 19 January has held up since the first in a series of exchanges of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
Netanyahu has faced criticism from his far-right coalition allies for agreeing to the deal, which some in Israel feel rewards Hamas and leaves the militant group in place in Gaza.
But successive surveys have shown broad support among the public for the ceasefire, and thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demand the government stick to the deal until all the remaining hostages are returned.
Israel launched its war in the Gaza Strip after the Hamas-led attack that killed some 1200 people, according to Israeli tallies, with 251 kidnapped. The Israeli military campaign has killed some 48,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say, and left densely populated Gaza largely in ruins.
Living hostages
Thursday's handover of bodies will be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians, expected to be women and minors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for nearly 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first phase of an agreement intended to open the way towards ending the war in Gaza.
So far 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thais who were returned in an unscheduled handover.
Negotiations for a second phase are expected to begin in the coming days, and are expected to cover the return of about 60 remaining hostages - less than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow an end to the war.
Prospects for an agreement remain uncertain, however, with both sides far apart on issues, including the future governance of Gaza, which Israel has said cannot be run by either Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
The issue has also been clouded by US President Donald Trump's call for Palestinians to be resettled outside Gaza, a move critics say would amount to a war crime and ethnic cleansing, and for the enclave to be developed as a waterfront property under US control.
-Reuters
