Latest news with #OdedLifschitz
Voice of America
20-02-2025
- Voice of America
February 20, 2025
1 People gather, on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel.
BBC News
20-02-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Return of bodies marks day of anguish for Israel
On a bleak late winter's day, under leaden skies and occasional driving rain, this was the moment all Israelis had been return of the began, as all the handovers so far have begun, with a politically charged display by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups involved in holding Israeli hostages for over 500 again, there was a stage, flanked by huge posters highlighting the catastrophic consequences of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and the Palestinian determination to stay instead of haunted, sometimes emaciated, survivors, there were four black coffins, each bearing a photograph and a name – Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir - accompanied by the image of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin casings bore the slogan: "They were killed by US bombs". Hamas has long argued that all four were killed by Israeli air raids on Gaza, something which has not been previously, Red Cross officials were on hand to oversee the process. In a rare public statement on the matter, they had urged Hamas to conduct the handover in a private, dignified efforts had clearly been in vain, but they attempted to screen the coffins from public scrutiny, draping each one in a white sheet before driving them watching crowd was smaller than usual, perhaps because of the heavy Thursday morning's handover, at a military ceremony on the edge of the Gaza Strip, the coffins carrying the hostages were draped with Israeli flags and prayers offered by the army's chief rabbi.A convoy of vehicles then made its way north towards the Abu Kabir forensic institute, in Jaffa, where formal identification of the bodies is taking the route, small groups of Israelis stood silently in the rain, carrying Israeli flags and yellow banners - the colour associated with the hostages and their Karmei Gat, where displaced members of kibbutz Nir Oz are living, waiting to go home, the vigil was particularly four of Thursday's released hostages were seized from Nir Oz on 7 October Aviv's Hostages Square was a study in grief, with people crying or sitting on the ground, heads in faces of the red-headed Bibas boys - Ariel and Kfir - are plastered on walls, road signs and in windows up and down the country. Fearing the worst, Israelis have nevertheless clung to the hope that the brothers might have survived, along with their mother, Shiri."We were devastated by the news," Orly Marron said, outside Abu Kabir."I have red-headed grandchildren and seeing the photographs is really very heartbreaking."Oded Lifschitz's son, Yizhar, meanwhile told Israel Radio that he had always feared for his father's health, since his violent abduction in October was 84 years old at the time. He and his wife, Yocheved, were both taken to Khan Younis in Gaza, where they were separated, never to see each other was released by Hamas two weeks after the attack."We need to close this wound and move forward," Yizhar said, adding that his father, a noted journalist and peace activist, had long had a vision about how to resolve the conflicts of the Middle East."It's sad that we went through this whole cycle and didn't solve it," Yizhar said. "We left it as something simmering, and look where we are now." Meanwhile, back in Gaza, some Palestinians expressed their anger that Israeli bodies had been handed over, while an unknown number of Palestinians killed in Israel's military campaign remain buried in the apocalyptic wreckage of the Gaza addition, as many as 665 bodies are being held by Israel in numbered cemeteries, according to a Palestinian protest group, The National Campaign to Recover the Bodies of the Martyrs. It says some have been held for decades."I don't like this agreement at all," Ikram Abu Salout said in Khan Younis. "They didn't remove the rubble and we don't even know where our children and families are."As she was speaking, bulldozers flying Egyptian flags were finally arriving in northern Gaza. Israel allowed the equipment to enter, in exchange for Thursday's handover and the release of six more living hostages this coming Saturday.
Al Arabiya
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Hamas hands over bodies of four Gaza hostages to Israel
Hundreds of people gathered in the winter cold on Thursday as Palestinian militant groups handed over to Israel the bodies of four hostages, including the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 attack. Palestinian militant groups had announced that the bodies of the two boys and their mother Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, would be handed over under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. Armed Hamas militants in black and camouflage uniforms toured the area at the handover point in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
