Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make Hamas pay “the full price” for what he called a “cruel and wicked violation” of the tenuous Gaza ceasefire agreement after the Israeli and U.S.-designated terrorist group returned the remains of a Gazan woman instead of an Israeli mother taken hostage with her two young children.
Israeli officials said late Thursday evening that Hamas had handed over the body of an unidentified Gazan woman earlier in the day instead of the remains of Shiri Bibas as expected. In a handover orchestrated under the ceasefire deal that came into effect on Jan. 19, Hamas was supposed to return the bodies on Thursday of Bibas along with her two slain sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, who at just nine months old was the youngest of the 251 Israelis seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
The children’s remains were returned, along with the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83, but Netanyahu said that instead of Shiri Bibas’ remains, Hamas “put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin.”
“May the sacred memory of Oded Lifshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas be etched in the heart of the nation forever,” he said. “May God avenge their blood. And so will we.”
Hamas has claimed since November 2023 that Shiri Bibas, her children and Lifshitz were all killed in Israeli bombing in Gaza, along with some militants who were holding them captive. Yarden Bibas, the children’s father, was not with his family on Oct. 7, but was taken separately. He was released earlier this month after 16 months in captivity.
In a statement on Friday, Hamas indicated the handover of a different body the previous day could have been a mistake, claiming there was a “possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies, which may have resulted from the occupation targeting and bombing the place where the family was located.”
The statement said Hamas would look at “these claims with complete seriousness, and we will announce the results clearly,” and it added that the group wished to, “confirm our seriousness and full commitment to all our obligations, and we have proven this through our behavior during the past days. We have no interest in not committing [to the ceasefire terms] or keeping any bodies with us.”
Hamas called on Israel to return the remains of the unidentified Gazan woman to the decimated Palestinian territory.
The Israel Defense Forces issued a terse statement Friday rejecting Hamas’ claim that the Bibas children were killed in an IDF strike.
“Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by terrorists in cold blood,” the IDF alleged. “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. This assessment is based on both forensic findings from the identification process, and intelligence that supports the findings.”
The incident, along with previous hostage handovers that have seen large crowds of well-armed Hamas terrorists and civilians crowding around freed Israelis and, on Thursday for instance, a massive propaganda poster behind the coffins holding the hostages’ remains depicting Netanyahu as a bloody vampire, have drawn fury from Israeli officials and the Trump administration.
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The handovers have also been increasingly criticized by the international community — including by the Red Cross, which has facilitated the physical transfer of hostages, both living and dead, inside Gaza. In a Friday statement to Reuters, the global organization said it was “concerned and unsatisfied” with the way the releases have played out.
“The ICRC does not participate in sorting, screening, or examining the deceased — this is the responsibility of the parties to the conflict,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said, according to Reuters, adding concern that the Thursday transfer of remains had not been carried out in a private and dignified manner.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also issued a statement condemning “the parading of bodies and displaying of the coffins of the deceased Israeli hostages by Hamas on Thursday. Under international law, any handover of the remains of the deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families.”
Regardless of any intentionality on the part of Hamas, that handover of the wrong body and Israel’s stern reaction to it left the already-fragile ceasefire in an even more perilous position Friday, just a week before the first six-week phase of the deal is set to end. A total of 33 living Israeli hostages were to be handed over during the first phase under the terms of the agreement, the final six of whom should be released Saturday.
There was no immediate indication from Israel or Hamas that Saturday’s planned release, and the corresponding release by Israel of scores more Palestinian prisoners from its jails, would not go ahead.
Talks to hammer out the terms of the second phase, due to begin at the start of March, should have begun a couple weeks ago, but there’s been no indication from Israel, Hamas, or the U.S. and its regional partners Qatar and Egypt, which helped negotiate the ceasefire, of what progress may or may not have been made.
Netanyahu has been under constant pressure from some far-right members of his cabinet to end the ceasefire and resume Israel’s military operation in Gaza, and Netanyahu himself has stressed that the goal of the war has always been to disarm, if not destroy Hamas. In that objective, Israel’s government appears to have the firm backing of the Trump administration.
In an interview on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Hamas, “evil, terrible people, and the idea that they would ever be allowed to continue to have arms and to be militarized and control territory, anywhere in the world, is unfathomable.”
“As long as Hamas is in Gaza, there will never be peace in Gaza,” he said, “because they are going to go back to attacking Israel, and Israel is going to have to respond.”
The families of the dozens of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza have been far less eager to see a resumption of fighting, however. In a statement cited Friday by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Kibbutz Nir Oz, the community from which the Bibas children and their mother were abducted, said it stood by the “clear demands of the Bibas family at this time: release, not revenge.”
“The state must bring Shiri back by all means, in a way that will not hinder the continuation of the deal and the immediate release of all hostages,” the kibbutz community was quoted as saying.
“Hamas is a murderous organization that does not hesitate to kill infants and toddlers. Our expectations are from the Israeli government, whose actions must be immediate to free all 70 hostages from the hands of the murderers and end the ongoing failure.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of all the Israelis taken captive in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, said in a separate statement that it was “horrified and devastated by the news” that Shiri Bibas’ remains were not returned.
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“To the world, we say: Do not look away. In Hamas’ hell in Gaza, 70 more of our children, brothers, sisters, and parents remain in captivity, enduring unimaginable terror. Do not abandon them to their fate. Save them from this nightmare. Every passing minute is a death sentence for those still alive and a threat to our ability to bring back the fallen for a proper burial.
“Israel and the international community must stand firm in ensuring that the agreement is upheld while acting with wisdom and urgency to address these blatant violations,” the group said. “Every step must be taken with careful responsibility to secure the safe return of all hostages.”
The forum added a specific plea to President Trump, thanking him “for his unwavering support and strong stance in the fight against terror,” and calling on the U.S. leader “to continue standing with us in demanding the immediate return of all hostages.”
Israel’s 15-month war against Hamas killed more than 48,000 people in Gaza, according to the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. About 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas-orchestrated terrorist attack that sparked the war.