The body of the Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas has been returned to Israel after Hamas sent the wrong.
The Bibas family confirmed on Saturday morning the human remains that were returned to Israel of the Gaza Strip devastated by the war on Friday have been identified as Shiri’s, 32 years.
“Last night, our Shiri was returned home,” the family said in a statement. “After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, we received this morning the news we had feared: our Shiri was killed in captivity and now he has returned home with his children, husband, sister and his whole family to rest.”
A spokesman for the International Red Cross Committee told ABC News on Friday night that his team “received human remains, which were then transferred to Israeli authorities.”
The Palestinian Mujedeen Brigades, a small militant group in Gaza, thought he was holding Shiri and his two children, said Friday night that he had delivered Shiri’s remains to the Red Cross, according to The Associated Press.
This photo proportionate to the Hostage Family Forum shows Shiri Bibas, who was kidnapped and brought to Gaza on October 7, 2023.
HOST FAMILY FORUM THROUGH AP
Shiri, her husband Yarden, 35, and her two small children Ariel, 4 years old, and Kfir, 9 months, were kidnapped from her home in southern Israel and taken captive to Gaza during the terrorist attack led by Hamas On October 7, 2023. Yarden survived the test and was released earlier this month.
Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, delivered the remains of what he said there were four dead Israeli hostages: Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, as well as Oded Lifshitz, 84. of the Alto El Fuego Agreement with Israel. After performing a forensic analysis, Israeli officials positively identified three of the bodies returned as Lifshitz and the children of Bibas, but said that the room was not that of their mother or any other hostage. The analysis also found that Ariel and Kfir “were brutally murdered by terrorists while they were retained as hostages in Gaza, no later than 2023,” according to Israel’s defense forces.
“The terrorists did not shoot the two children, they killed them with their naked hands,” said the IDF in a statement on Friday. “Subsequently, they committed horrible acts to cover up these atrocities. This evaluation is based on both the forensic findings of the identification process and the intelligence that supports the findings. “
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised to “take revenge” for the return of an incorrect body.
Hamas has repeatedly denied Israel’s accusations that he killed the Bibas family, qualifying the statements “nothing more than pure lies” in a statement on Friday. The group maintains that the mother and her two young children died in an Israeli air attack.
Ellie Kaufan, Jordana Miller and Samy Zyara of ABC News contributed to this report.
