The Israel Defence Forces said it had forensically identified the bodies of two Israeli hostage children released by Hamas on Thursday – Kfir Bibas and his older brother, Ariel – but that the additional body they received was not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas.
“There was no match for any other hostages. “This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the IDF stated on social media.
“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organisation, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” according to the IDF. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”
According to the military, Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine collaborated with the Israel Police to identify the deceased hostages.
The Israel Defence Forces reported that “professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.”
Kfir was 9 months old and Ariel was 4 years old when they were kidnapped, along with their parents, as Hamas fighters tore through Israel’s border towns on October 7, killing 1,200 people and holding over 200 others hostage. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli attacks have killed over 47,000 Palestinians since then.
The Bibas boys were the youngest Israeli hostages and the only children still held captive by Hamas following the release of 100 hostages in a brief cease-fire agreement in November 2023.
Their father, Yarden, 34, who had been kidnapped separately and held in a different part of Gaza, was released on February 1 as part of a new ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
