Israel stated on Friday that one of many our bodies Hamas handed over as part of the cease-fire deal didn’t belong to an Israeli girl 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 up to now.
Who had been the hostages?
Hamas stated 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handed over the stays of 4 hostages: Shiri Bibas, 32; her two kids, Ariel, 4, and Kfir Bibas, lower than a 12 months outdated; and Oded Lifshitz, 83. All 4 had 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 turn 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 every one 4 hostages had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. However Israel stated that three of the 4 returned on Thursday — which had 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 photograph 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 predominant forensic institute in Tel Aviv, the place three had been confirmed to be who Hamas stated they had been.
However the fourth was an “nameless, unidentified corpse,” the Israeli army stated early Friday, ruling out that the stays had 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 total value for this merciless and cruel violation.”
Hamas acknowledged in an announcement “the potential for a mistake or a mixing up of corpses” and stated it might examine. The group stated it was dedicated to shifting ahead with the deal and referred to as for Israel to return the physique.
Neither facet has offered proof for public scrutiny.
What’s subsequent?
Israel and Hamas had been set for an additional hostage-for-prisoner alternate on Saturday — one that will free six Israeli hostages held in Gaza for plenty of Palestinians jailed by Israel. Though Israeli officers expressed outraged over Ms. Bibas’s destiny, they appeared longing for the subsequent swap to go forward as deliberate.
Below the phrases of the deal, Israel was alleged to additionally free some Gazan girls 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, huge query marks hover over the way forward for the truce, which paused 15 months of devastating preventing in Gaza that killed tens of hundreds of Palestinians, together with many civilians, girls and kids.
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.
