As part of the ongoing ceasefire agreement aimed at halting the Gaza war, Hamas on Thursday transferred the bodies of four Israeli hostages to the Red Cross. The victims included a woman and her two children—the youngest captives taken by the Palestinian militant group during the October 2023 attack on Israel.
The remains belonged to Shiri Bibas (32), her sons Ariel (4) and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz. Kfir, just nine months old at the time of his abduction, was taken alongside his mother and brother. Lifshitz, a retired journalist and peace activist, was 83.
In November 2023, Hamas claimed that Shiri and her sons had been killed in an Israeli airstrike but provided no additional details. The group cited the same cause for Lifshitz’s death.
Ahead of the remains’ handover, Hamas issued a statement asserting it had done “everything in (its) power to protect and preserve the lives” of the hostages. The group blamed Israel’s “brutal and continuous bombardment” for preventing the rescue of all abductees.
“You were a victim of a leadership that does not care about its children,” Hamas stated in a message to the victims’ families.
Hundreds of people gathered in Gaza’s Khan Younis to witness armed Hamas members—dressed in black and camouflage uniforms—transporting the coffins to a designated area.
One militant stood beside an image depicting a man with tree roots instead of legs, standing over coffins wrapped in Israeli flags, suggesting a claim to the land. Another poster portrayed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodied monster with fangs, captioned: “The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Zionist warplanes.”
