Middle East crisis live: Shiri Bibas remains mixed with others after airstrike, Hamas claims after Israel says wrong body returned
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other remains after airstrike
Hamas says the remains of Shiri Bibas appear to have been mixed with other human remains in rubble after an Israeli airstrike, the Reuters news agency reports.
The statement comes after Israel said one of the four bodies returned by Hamas on Thursday is not that of the hostage Shiri Bibas.
The IDF said it was a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
Key events
Israel to release 602 prisoners in Gaza swap on Saturday, reports AFP.
Israel will free 602 prisoners and detainees from jails on Saturday as part of a hostage-prisoner swap with Hamas under an ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.
Among those released, 445 are individuals from Gaza who were arrested after Hamas’ 7 October attack that sparked the latest conflict. Sixty are serving long sentences, 50 are serving life sentences, and 47 were re-arrested after a 2011 prisoner exchange, Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the NGO, told AFP
Hamas says it is investigating a possible error in identifying human remains, Reuters reports, after Israeli specialists accused it of violating the ceasefire by failing to return the body of Shiri Bibas.
Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, says “unfortunate mistakes” could have occurred, especially as Israeli bombing had mingled the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians, thousands of whom were still buried in the rubble.
“We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign,” the statement adds.
Argentina announced two days of national mourning on Thursday after the bodies of two Israeli Argentine children who had been taken hostage by Hamas were handed over by the group, reports AFP.
Argentina’s president Javier Milei will call for two days of national mourning, his office said in an official statement.
Milei also extended his “condolences to the family, especially to Yarden Bibas, the children’s father, who after suffering the torment of being kidnapped for 484 days is now facing his worst nightmare”, the statement added.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a body that Hamas militants released during the handover of remains of Israeli hostages is that of a woman from Gaza instead of that of Shiri Bibas, the mother of two young boys whose bodies were returned on Thursday.
AP reports that, in a statement released on Friday, Netanyahu criticised the handover of the wrong remains as a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement, which has halted fighting in the Gaza Strip, and said Hamas would “pay the full price” for the action.
Hamas militants turned over four bodies on Thursday under the tenuous ceasefire, which has paused over 15 months of war. Israeli confirmed one body was that of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted during the Hamas attack on Israel that started the war on 7 October 2023.
The remains of Shiri Bibas’ two young sons, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, were positively identified, the Israel Defense Forces said, but added the fourth body was not that of their mother, nor of any other hostage.
“We will work with determination to bring Shiri home together with all our hostages – both living and dead – and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and malicious violation of the agreement,” Netanyahu said.
“The sacred memory of Oded Lifshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will be forever enshrined in the heart of the nation. May God avenge their blood. And so we will avenge,” he added.
AFP reports that Hamas has rejected Netanyahu’s “threats” to make the group pay after he accused it of violating the ceasefire by not returning the hostage Shiri Bibas.
Hamas said in a statement:
We reject the threats issued by Benjamin Netanyahu as part of his attempts to improve his image.
The movement affirmed its “seriousness and full commitment” to its responsibilities under the ceasefire, and said it had “no interest in failing to comply or holding on to any bodies”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the world to condemn what he described as the “horrific murders” of the two Bibas children, whose bodies Hamas handed over as part of a Gaza ceasefire deal.
“The entire civilised world should condemn these horrific murders,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Who kidnaps a little boy and a baby and murders them? Monsters. That’s who … I vow that I will not rest until the savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice”.
Hamas, however, says the children – along with their mother – were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.
A BBC documentary about Gaza has been pulled from BBC iPlayer while the corporation conducts “further due diligence”, following the broadcaster admitting a child featured was the son of a man who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture, PA reports.
A statement from the BBC said: “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone features important stories we think should be told, those of the experiences of children in Gaza.
“There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”
Leader of Sinn Fein will boycott St. Patrick’s day events in US over Gaza
Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein and First Minister Michelle O’Neill, say they will not attend the celebrations after Trump’s call to exile Palestinians from Gaza.
Senior Sinn Fein figures normally travel to America every year for St Patrick’s Day events.
McDonald said:
I’ve thought deeply about this issue in recent days, and listened to many voices inside and outside of Sinn Fein. I’ve made the decision not to attend the event in the White House this year as a principled stance against the call for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza, something which I believe demands serious dissent and objection.
I followed with growing concern what’s happening on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank, and like many other Irish people, have listened in horror to calls from the president of the United States for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and the permanent seizure of Palestinian lands.
There is also an onus on us to speak honestly and to act when we believe a US administration is wrong, catastrophically so in the case of Palestine.
O’Neill said Trump’s comments on “forced expulsion of the Palestinian people of Gaza cannot be ignored”.
On X, she said that she will “continue to engage with senior figures in the US for peace and economic growth”.
“In the future, when our children and grandchildren ask us what we did while the Palestinian people endured unimaginable suffering, I will say I stood firmly on the side of humanity,” she added.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Health, Majed Abu Ramadan, announced on Friday that the third rollout of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza will begin on Saturday, reports the Wafa news agency.
In a statement, Minister Abu Ramadan emphasized the Ministry of Health’s role in leading a national health initiative aimed at protecting Palestinian children from the spread of polio.
“The Palestinian Ministry of Health is leading this national community health campaign, driven by our responsibility to protect our children from the threat of polio.”
Nils Mallock
After coming the closest yet to falling apart, the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is back on its fragile track. Just days ago, an escalating dispute threatened the deal after both sides expressed frustration about the other’s fulfilment of their respective obligations. Donald Trump’s recent proposal to resettle Gaza’s population of two million Palestinians also rattled the truce.
The turbulences of the month-old ceasefire expose a deeper political uncertainty: after 15 months of fighting, no clear vision exists for what comes next. Who should govern and rebuild Gaza? What will its future relationship with Israel be?
To navigate these questions, listening to ordinary people’s perspectives is crucial. As behavioural scientists based at the London School of Economics, Jeremy Ginges and I conducted a large-scale study of how Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis view each other, and the future…
Hamas asks Israel to return body of Gazan woman given Thursday
Israel’s claim that the body returned to them yesterday was that of an unidentified Gazan woman, not Shiri Bibas a mother of two who was taken hostage on 7 October, 2023.
In a statement, Hamas says it will “examine these allegations very seriously”.
Hamas official Ismail al-Thawabteh claims that Shiri’s body “was turned into pieces after apparently being mixed with other bodies under the rubble”.
Hamas has claimed for the past year that Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were killed in an Israeli airstrike; Israel said overnight that they were murdered in captivity.
“We also point out the possibility of an error or overlap regarding the bodies, which may have resulted from the occupation targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians,” Hamas said in a statement published on Telegram.
The group added it “will announce the results transparently” and they have no interest in “keeping any bodies” of the captives.
Hamas announces names of six hostages due to be released tomorrow
Hamas officially announces that it will be releasing hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed tomorrow.
Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been captive in Gaza for over a decade. The others were abducted on October 7, 2023.
Over half a million children left without education across Gaza and the West Bank
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that vital aid for children in in the West Bank is being scuppered by increasing violence in the region.
Over 200 children have died in the West Bank since the Gaza ceasefire came into effect. The number of child deaths is the highest recorded in years, said the IRC. “This surge in violence is causing profound trauma and preventing IRC and partners from responding to meet mounting needs in Jenin, one of the worst-hit areas,” it said in a statement.
The IRC has partnered with the Palestinian organisation Teacher Creativity Center (TCC) to support children affected by the ongoing violence in the region. “However, ongoing military operations, including airstrikes, have destroyed infrastructure and made it nearly impossible to safely deliver these vital services,” the statement added.
The organisation says despite the ceasefire, 658,000 school-aged children in Gaza and across the West Bank remain without formal education, with almost 90% of schools destroyed, damaged, or being used as shelters.
Zoe Daniels, the IRC’s Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), said: “While there’s a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, children in the West Bank are facing increasing levels of violence, displacement, and deep trauma. The very places meant to protect and support them—schools, safe spaces, essential services—are disappearing before their eyes.”
Daniels added that education is a universal right and must continue even during conflict. “Civilians, schools, and critical infrastructure must never be targets. The international community must step up, hold those responsible accountable, and take urgent action to prevent more harm.”
Red Cross “unsatisfied” by Hamas’ handling of hostage releases
The Red Cross is “concerned and unsatisfied” by the way Hamas hostage release operations have taken place, it told Reuters on Friday after the Israeli military said one of the returned bodies did not belong to any of the hostages held in Gaza.
Two of the four bodies handed over on Thursday were identified as infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, while a third body that was supposed to be their mother, Shiri, was found not to match with any hostage and remained unidentified, the military said.
“The ICRC does not participate in sorting, screening, or examining the deceased – this is the responsibility of the parties to the conflict”, it said in a statement on Friday, while expressing concern that the releases had not been conducted privately and in a dignified manner.
Bethan McKernan
One of the four bodies returned by Hamas to Israel on Thursday is not that of the hostage Shiri Bibas, Israel’s military has said, calling it a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
The Israeli military confirmed that two of the bodies belonged to Bibas’s children, Ariel and Kfir, in the early hours of Friday. However, it added: “During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body”…
Hamas have reiterated their claim that the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two children were killed by an Israeli airstrike, following Israel’s claim that the body returned to them yesterday was that of an unidentified Gazan woman, not Bibas.
In a statement, Hamas says it will “examine these allegations very seriously.”
Hamas official Ismail al-Thawabteh claims that Shiri’s body “was turned into pieces after apparently being mixed with other bodies under the rubble.”
Hamas has claimed for the past year that Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were killed in an Israeli airstrike; Israel said overnight that they were murdered in captivity.
Israel claims that authorities at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute were able to definitively determine the body did not belong to Bibas, adding the body was dressed in clothing and was examined several times by the institute. Israel claim the body’s DNA was tested against that of Shiri and all other female hostages still held by Hamas, and none of them matched.
