Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned on Friday that Israel would make Hamas pay for failing to launch the physique of hostage Shiri Bibas as agreed.
“We’ll act with dedication to convey Shiri house together with all our hostages — each residing and lifeless — and guarantee Hamas pays the complete value for this merciless and evil violation of the settlement,” he mentioned in a video assertion.
The assertion got here after Israeli specialists mentioned that one of many 4 our bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday was an unidentified lady and not Shiri Bibas, whose two sons, Kfir and Ariel had been handed over and recognized.
Netanyahu accused Hamas of performing “in an unspeakably cynical method” by inserting the physique of a Gaza lady within the coffin as a substitute of Shiri Bibas, who was kidnapped alongside together with her two sons and her husband, Yarden, in the course of the Hamas assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu gave no particulars on a attainable Israeli response, however the incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire settlement reached with U.S. backing and with the assistance of Qatari and Egyptian mediators final month.
6 hostages to be freed, Hamas says
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza authorities media workplace, mentioned Shiri Bibas’s stays seem to have been blended with different human stays after being buried within the rubble of a constructing destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.
Hamas mentioned in November 2023 that the kids and their mom had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli army mentioned intelligence assessments and forensic evaluation of the our bodies of the Bibas youngsters indicated that they had been intentionally killed by their captors.
Israelis got here collectively in Tel Aviv on Thursday because the our bodies of 4 hostages — together with two youngsters — had been returned to Israel from Gaza, in what one man described because the ‘saddest day’ for the reason that lethal Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas militants.
It’s not clear if the mixup will jeopardize the beginning of negotiations for a second section of the ceasefire, which was anticipated within the coming days.
Hamas mentioned it deliberate to launch six hostages, all alive, as initially deliberate for Saturday.
The armed wing of militant group Hamas mentioned it’ll launch Israeli hostages Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto on Saturday.
Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto are civilians, who entered Gaza a decade in the past and have been held there since.
Pink Cross, hostage households group condemn mixup
The Pink Cross instructed Reuters on Friday it was “involved and unhappy” by the best way Hamas hostage launch operations had taken place.
“The ICRC doesn’t take part in sorting, screening, or inspecting the deceased — that is the duty of the events to the battle,” it mentioned in an announcement on Friday, whereas expressing concern that the releases had not been carried out privately and in a dignified method.
The failure to return Shiri Bibas, and the staged public handover of the 4 coffins on Thursday prompted outrage in Israel.
“It is like they make a joke of us,” mentioned 75-year-old Ilana Caspi. “We’re so in grief and that is much more. It is such as you make a punch once more, one other one and one other one. It is actually horrible.”
One of many primary teams representing hostage households mentioned they had been “horrified and devastated” by the information that Shiri Bibas’s physique had not been returned, however known as for the ceasefire to proceed to convey again all the 70 hostages nonetheless in Gaza.
“Save them from this nightmare,” the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board mentioned in an announcement.
As the strain over the Gaza ceasefire rose, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli army to accentuate operations in one other Palestinian territory, the occupied West Financial institution, after various explosions blew up buses standing empty of their depots close to Tel Aviv.
No casualties had been reported however the explosions had been a reminder of the marketing campaign of suicide assaults on public transport that killed a whole bunch of Israeli civilians in the course of the Second Intifada within the early 2000s.
