Hamas hands over bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include Bibas children and their mother
Hamas on Thursday handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza — the first time the group has released deceased captives since October 7, 2023.
They are said to include the bodies of Shiri Bibas, who was aged 32 when she and her sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months, were abducted from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel by Hamas-led militants more than 16 months ago.
The two boys have become the most recognizable victims of the October 7 terror attacks, and the first return of hostage bodies marks a hugely emotional and somber moment for Israel.
The fourth body is said to be that of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 years old when he and his wife, Yocheved Lifshitz, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yocheved was released by Hamas on October 24, 2023.
Ahead of the handover, Hamas militants placed four black caskets on a stage in the southern city of Khan Younis, behind which was a propaganda backdrop with slogans in Arabic, Hebrew and English.
The caskets were first handed to the Red Cross then transferred to the Israeli military inside Gaza, Israeli authorities confirmed.
The bodies will be taken to the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for forensic examination.
After the handover, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said hearts across the country 'lie in tatters,' and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the government for failing to protect those captured on October 7.
'Agony. Pain. There are no words,' he wrote in a post on X.
Hamas claimed in November 2023 that the Bibas children and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike, but did not produce any evidence. Israel has never confirmed their deaths.
The children's father, Yarden Bibas, was released by Hamas earlier this month after 484 days of captivity. He was one of the 19 Israeli hostages freed alive under the January 2025 ceasefire deal.
The Israeli military had previously retrieved the bodies of multiple hostages in Gaza.
At just 9 months old, Kfir was the youngest hostage kidnapped into Gaza and the youngest to have been killed. A photo of him holding a pink elephant toy and looking directly at the camera with a toothless smile has been featured in numerous campaigns and protests around the world.
His brother Ariel, just 4 at the time of the attack, was often shown in a photo taken after he had a haircut, still wrapped in the hairdresser's cape. Earlier photos of the family showed Ariel, a big fan of Batman, with locks of long red hair.
The picture was shown on the large screens at New York City's Times Square, printed on t-shirts worn by protesters in London, Berlin and elsewhere, and brought to the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
A video of the Bibas family's abduction became one of the symbols of the brutality of the October 7 terror attack. It showed a terrified Shiri clinging tightly to her children wrapped in a blanket, with Ariel still sucking his pacifier.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later released another video, which they said showed Shiri and the two boys alive in southern Gaza on October 7. The footage showed a person wrapped in a blanket carrying a child being ordered around by armed militants before being put in a car and driven away.
The two boys and their mother were not released from Gaza during the temporary truce in late November 2023, even though the deal agreed between Israel and Hamas called for all women and children to be set free.
The IDF said at that time they believed the family was being held by other militant groups, not Hamas.
Later that week, Hamas said the two Bibas children and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike, without providing evidence. Israel never confirmed their deaths.
A few days after making the claim, Hamas released a video of Yarden, the father, in which he blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the death of his wife and two children.
Yarden appeared to be in extreme distress in the video and was very likely speaking under duress.
In a statement published shortly after his release this month, Yarden urged the world to 'continue doing everything possible' to ensure all hostages return home.
'Sadly, my family hasn't returned to me yet. They are still there. My light is still there, and as long as they're there, everything here is dark. Thanks to you, I was brought back - help me bring the light back to my life,' he said, referring to the Israeli public.
The run up to the release of the four bodies on Thursday was marred by the Bibas family's anger at the Israeli Prime Minister's office, which they said had released the names without their approval.
A source in the Prime Minister's office told CNN that while it had not published an official statement with the names of the dead hostages, IDF liaison officers had approved the publishing of the names to reporters without clearing this first with the family.
The forum later released a statement at the request of the Bibas family asking the public not to 'eulogize our loved ones until there is a confirmation after final identification.' The final identification is expected to come in the following days.
In a statement Wednesday ahead of the release, Lifshitz's family said that 'these are not easy times for us, after we were informed that our beloved Oded is on the list of the hostages who will return to Israel tomorrow, after being kidnapped alive from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.'
This is a developing story. More to come …
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
21 minutes ago
Emissions fell when firms reported them—EPA may end rule
LEOPOLD, Ind. -- On the ceiling of Abbie Brockman's middle school English classroom in Perry County, the fluorescent lights are covered with images of a bright blue sky, a few clouds floating by. Outside, the real sky isn't always blue. Sometimes it's hazy, with pollution drifting from coal-fired power plants in this part of southwest Indiana. Knowing exactly how much, and what it may be doing to the people who live there, is why Brockman got involved with a local environmental organization that's installing air and water quality monitors in her community. 'Industry and government is very, very, very powerful. It's more powerful than me. I'm just an English teacher,' Brockman said. But she wants to feel she can make a difference. In a way, Brockman's monitoring echoes the reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring from large polluters more than a decade ago. Emissions from four coal-fired plants in southwest Indiana have dropped 60% since 2010, when the rule took effect. That rule is now on the chopping block, one of many that President Donald Trump's EPA argues is costly and burdensome for industry. But experts say dropping the requirement risks a big increase in emissions if companies are no longer publicly accountable for what they put in the air. And they say losing the data — at the same time the EPA is cutting air quality monitoring elsewhere — would make it tougher to fight climate change. At stake is the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, a 2009 rule from President Barack Obama's administration that affects large carbon polluters like refineries, power plants, wells and landfills. In the years since, they've collectively reported a 20% drop in emissions, mostly driven by the closure of coal plants. And what happens at these big emitters makes a difference. Their declining emissions account for more than three-quarters of the overall, if modest, decline in all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions since 2010. The registry includes places not usually thought of as big polluters but that have notable greenhouse gas emissions, such as college campuses, breweries and cereal factories. Even Walt Disney World in Florida, where pollution dropped 62% since 2010, has to report along with nearly 10,600 other places. "We can't solve climate change without knowing how much pollution major facilities are emitting and how that's changing over time," said Jeremy Symons, a former EPA senior climate adviser now at Environmental Protection Network, an organization of ex-EPA officials that monitors environmental policies. The group provided calculations as a part of The Associated Press' analysis of impacts from proposed rule rollbacks. Symons said some companies would welcome the end of the registry because it would make it easier to pollute. It's not clear how much the registry itself has contributed to declining emissions. More targeted regulations on smokestack emissions, as well as coal being crowded out by cheaper and less polluting natural gas, are bigger factors. But the registry 'does put pressure on companies to ... document what they've done or at least to provide a baseline for what they've done,' said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who heads Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tally national carbon emissions yearly. Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator under Obama, said the registry makes clear how power plants are doing against each other, and that's an inducement to lower emissions. "It is money for those companies. It's costs. It's reputation. It's been, I think, a wonderful success story and I hope it continues.' The potential end of the reporting requirement comes as experts say much of the country's air goes unmonitored. Nelson Arley Roque, a Penn State professor who co-authored a study in April on these 'monitoring deserts,' said about 40% of U.S. lands are unmonitored. That often includes poor and rural neighborhoods. "The air matters to all of us, but apparently 50 million people can't know or will never know'' how bad the air is, Roque said. The EPA is also trying to claw back money that had been earmarked for air monitoring, part of the termination of grants that it has labeled as targeting diversity, equity and inclusion. That includes $500,000 that would have funded 40 air monitors in a low-income and minority community in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area. CleaneAIRE NC, a nonprofit that works to improve air quality across the state that was awarded the grant, is suing. 'It's not diversity, equity and inclusion. It's human rights,' said Daisha Wall, the group's community science program manager. 'We all deserve a right to clean air.' Research strongly links poor air quality to diseases like asthma and heart disease, with a slightly less established link to cancer. Near polluting industries, experts say what's often lacking is either enough data in specific locations or the will to investigate the health toll. Indiana says it 'maintains a robust statewide monitoring and assessment program for air, land and water,' but Brockman and others in this part of the state aren't satisfied. She and other members of local advocacy groups Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life and Valley Watch install and maintain their own air and water quality monitors. It's a full-time job to keep the network of monitors up and running, fighting spotty Wi-Fi and connectivity issues. Fighting industry is a sensitive subject, Brockman added. Many families depend on jobs at coal-fired power plants, and poverty is real. She keeps snacks in her desk for the kids who haven't eaten breakfast. 'But you also don't want to hear of another student that has a rare cancer,' she said. ___ ___
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jewish lawmakers call out silence as antisemitic threats surge in Florida
Sen. Tina Polsky made it clear in a prayer at the beginning of a Florida Senate session: The sound of silence is deadly for Jews in Florida and Jewish communities everywhere. On June 5, the Boca Raton Democrat called on senators to be 'a light in the darkness, to confront hatred with justice and to never stand silent in the face of cruelty.' It was a restatement of a "call to conscience" issued earlier in the day by the 14-member Florida Jewish Legislative Caucus. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, there has been an increase in violence against Jews in Florida, according to 'The Year in Hate and Extremism,' an annual report by Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit legal advocacy organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. There were 353 Florida reported antisemitism incidents in 2024, fewer than the previous year but 31% higher than 2022, according to the SPLC. The counties of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade make up the U.S. third largest Jewish community, after New York and Los Angeles. At the same time, some civil rights advocates and pro-Palestinian groups fear conflating hatred with legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. They caution about suppressing free speech and peaceful protest, calling for a balanced approach that protects Jewish communities while preserving the right to dissent. Earlier during a break in budget negotiations, Rep. Mike Gottlieb, D-Davie, the chair of the Jewish Legislative Caucus, held a news conference to encourage people to speak up and condemn violence because 'silence enables bigotry.' 'We need people to stand with us to fight antisemitism. It is not OK to pick on anybody for any reason. We need Floridians to know that we are uniting people, Republicans, Democrats, independents, Black, White, gay, straight, to say this is wrong and we are not going to tolerate it,' Gottlieb said. The SPLC report finds more than half of the reported incidents involved people harassing Jewish residents over the state of Israel policies. They include vandalism of Jewish institutions and places of worship, intimidating flyers from known hate groups, and outright battery, such as one involving a 68-year-old Broward man near a synagogue. 'People are literally experiencing fear to be Jewish here in America. A year and a half ago, I was talking to a few people. I said, 'We're going to just start getting knocked down in the streets,' and it's happening now,' said Rep. Debra Tendrich, D-Lake Worth. Tendrich organized Thursday's call-to-conscience news conference in less than 24 hours. A discussion with colleagues about three recent high-profile attacks, including two in which 'the attacker tried to burn Jews alive,' prompted her. In the past three months, a suspect has fire-bombed the Pennsylvania governor's mansion after Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro and family had finished dinner; two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered outside a Washington, D.C., museum; and a man with Molotov cocktails, gasoline, and a make-shift flamethrower sprayed fire on people marching in support of Jewish hostages still held by Hamas. Two dozen colleagues and legislative staffers stood with the 14-member caucus as they voiced disappointment with other elected officials and community leaders for not loudly condemning the acts of violence as hate crimes. Silence is complicit in abuse because it isolates the victims and makes them 'an easy target," Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman explained. Added Rep. Jennifer 'Rita' Harris, D-Orlando, 'Hate wants us to be silent.' Neo-Nazis staged demonstrations and flew banners on highway overpasses two years ago in her district. Earlier this year, Harris co-sponsored a bill that makes Jan. 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day in Florida. Rep. Hillary Cassel of Dania Beach flipped to the GOP from Democrat in December because among other issues she 'felt disconnected' from the Democratic Party after listening to a debate about a Hamas-Israeli ceasefire. She too said she would not be silenced. 'Let me be clear," she said. "Blaming Israel for Hamas terrorism is not activism. It is antisemitic. Shouting 'From the river to the sea' is not a peaceful protest. It is a genocidal slogan for the eradication of Israel and endangers Jewish lives everywhere. Language that advocates the destruction of an entire people is not activism. It is incitement.' Cassel said she was fortunate to live in the state of Florida where the Legislature has delivered "the most protections" in the country for the Jewish community. The past two sessions, the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis has responded to a series of hate crimes: HB 187, which codifies as Florida law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. Thirty-six other states use the IHRA definition, which emphasizes criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. HB 1109, which provides funding for security hardening measures at Jewish day schools. HB 269, which created a felony to harass individuals based on their ethnicity or religion and makes it a misdemeanor to leave flyers with hateful images, messages, or any other credible threat on a person's private property. Polsky told the Senate she was grateful beyond words for the allies and friends who have stood beside the Jewish community since the hostages were taken in 2023. She closed with these words, 'May we work together to transform grief into action and despair into hope, so that our children may live in a world free of fear in honor of those injured and to guide our body as we continue to work for the betterment of Florida." James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@ and is on X as @CallTallahassee. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Jewish legislative caucus slams rising antisemitism in Florida, U.S.
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
IDF detains Gaza-bound vessel carrying Greta Thunberg: ‘The show is over'
Israeli forces early Monday detained an aid boat bound for Gaza while carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists. The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed that it detained the Madleen, along with all its passengers, and diverted the vessel to Israel. A video from the ministry posted on X shows an Israeli Navy officer engaging with the approaching "selfie yacht." Israel Vows To 'Act Accordingly' As Thunberg Sails Toward Gaza On Palestinian-flagged Vessel "Using an international civilian communication system, the Israeli Navy has instructed the 'selfie yacht' to change its course due to its approach toward a restricted area," a post from the ministry read. The video shows a Navy officer telling them that the maritime of the Gaza coast is closed to traffic. She instructs the activists on board that they must deliver aid through established channels. Read On The Fox News App The Israel Foreign Ministry said the passengers were "safe and unharmed" and had been provided sandwiches and water. "The show is over," the ministry said. Israel had vowed to stop the so-called Freedom Flotilla Coalition in the days leading up to its arrival. Third Round Of Hostage Releases Begins As Part Of Hamas' Gaza Ceasefire Agreement With Israel Thunberg, a 22-year-old climate activist from Sweden, set sail aboard the Madleen last week, hoisting a Palestinian flag with 11 other activists, including "Game of Thrones" actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassa, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent. The groups' aim was to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip to bring in some aid and raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis there. According to the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, the aid on the ship was less than a single truckload. "The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels," the ministry said. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed the IDF to screen the footage of October 7 to participants of the Gaza-bound flotilla. Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this report. Original article source: IDF detains Gaza-bound vessel carrying Greta Thunberg: 'The show is over'
