Israel mentioned on Friday that one of many our bodies Hamas handed over as part of the cease-fire deal didn’t belong to an Israeli lady taken hostage in 2023, because the Palestinian militant group had claimed.
The revelation prompted additional alarm over the way forward for the brittle truce and hostage-for-prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel.
Right here’s what we all know thus far.
Who have been the hostages?
Hamas mentioned on Thursday that it had handed over the stays of 4 hostages: Shiri Bibas, 32; her two kids, Ariel, 4, and Kfir Bibas, lower than a 12 months previous; and Oded Lifshitz, 83. All 4 have been kidnapped from Nir Oz, a village close to Gaza that was devastated in Hamas’s shock assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
For a lot of Israelis, the Bibas household had change into emblematic of the brutality of the Hamas assault. Footage of a terrified Ms. Bibas clutching her two kids whereas being led away by Palestinian gunmen has been seared into the Israeli public consciousness.
Hamas claimed that each one 4 hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. However Israel mentioned that three of the 4 returned on Thursday — which have been recognized by way of DNA testing as belonging to Mr. Lifshitz and the 2 Bibas kids — had been murdered by their captors.
What occurred on Thursday?
Hamas handed four coffins to the International Committee of the Red Cross in a televised ceremony. Every coffin bore the picture of a captive whose physique was alleged to be turned over to Israel, together with Ms. Bibas.
The show was condemned internationally, together with by the United Nations’ excessive commissioner for human rights, who referred to as it “abhorrent and merciless.”
Israeli officers introduced the stays to the nation’s most important forensic institute in Tel Aviv, the place three have been confirmed to be who Hamas mentioned they have been.
However the fourth was an “nameless, unidentified corpse,” the Israeli army mentioned early Friday, ruling out that the stays have been these of Ms. Bibas.
What are Israel and Hamas saying?
Israel has referred to as the failure to return Ms. Bibas’s stays a extreme breach of the cease-fire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “would pay the complete worth for this merciless and cruel violation.”
Hamas acknowledged in a press release “the potential for a mistake or a mixing up of corpses” and mentioned it will examine. The group mentioned it was dedicated to shifting ahead with the deal and referred to as for Israel to return the physique.
Neither aspect has offered proof for public scrutiny.
What’s subsequent?
Israel and Hamas have been set for one more hostage-for-prisoner alternate on Saturday — one that may free six Israeli hostages held in Gaza for a variety of Palestinians jailed by Israel. Though Israeli officers expressed outraged over Ms. Bibas’s destiny, they appeared anticipating the subsequent swap to go forward as deliberate.
Beneath the phrases of the deal, Israel was alleged to additionally free some Gazan ladies and minors in alternate for the our bodies of the lifeless hostages. They’ve usually been detained with out formal prices, and Palestinians are likely to view them as successfully hostages themselves.
It was unclear how that alternate will go forward given Israel’s accusation that Hamas didn’t uphold its finish of the deal.
Even when the swap on Saturday does go ahead, large query marks hover over the way forward for the truce, which paused 15 months of devastating combating in Gaza that killed tens of hundreds of Palestinians, together with many civilians, ladies and youngsters.
The primary part of the cease-fire deal expires in lower than two weeks, and Israel and Hamas have but to agree on phrases to increase it to a second part.
