Militants hand over body of Israeli mother Shiri Bibas; Hamas frees 6 more hostages
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JERUSALEM — A body released by Palestinian militants overnight was confirmed to be that of Shiri Bibas, the Israeli mother whose two young sons also died in captivity, her family said Saturday.
“For 16 months we sought certainty, and now that it’s here, it brings no comfort, though we hope it marks the beginning of closure,” the Bibas family said.
Hamas had said Bibas’ remains were returned to Israel with those of her sons, Ariel and Kfir, and another hostage Thursday. Testing confirmed the identities of the three others but found the remains said to be Shiri Bibas were those of an unidentified Palestinian woman.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of a “cruel and malicious violation” of the cease-fire and vowed revenge.
With tensions rising, Palestinian militants late Friday said they turned over the correct set of remains to the Red Cross, which sent them to Israel for testing. The identification was confirmed early Saturday.
Despite the anger, Israel and Hamas on Saturday moved ahead with another exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners as part of the cease-fire. The six hostages released included three Israeli men seized from the Nova music festival and another abducted while visiting his family in southern Israel when militants stormed across the border in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 in Israel and ignited the war.
Two of the hostages had been held by Hamas for around a decade since they each entered Gaza on their own.
Five of the captives were handed over in staged ceremonies — brought out by masked, armed Hamas fighters in front of hundreds of Palestinians before being transferred to Red Cross vehicles.
Hostages freed from Gaza confront a flood of information about loved ones and destroyed communities, figuring out their place in a changed world.
In the central town of Nuseirat, Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov and Eliya Cohen were posed alongside Hamas fighters onstage. Hamas has come under heavy criticism for such public displays, with Israel, the U.N. and the Red Cross saying they are cruel and do not respect the dignity of the hostages.
Watching the release, Cohen’s family and friends in Israel chanted, “Eliya! Eliya! Eliya!” and cheered when they saw him for the first time. Shem Tov’s grandmother ululated in joy, shrieking, “Omer, my joy! My life!” as she saw him.
Earlier Saturday, two other hostages — Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 38 — were freed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Arriving back in Israel, both were taken to medical centers for examination.
“This is an unforgettable moment, where all emotions are rapidly mixing together. Our Tal is with us,” Shoham’s family said in a statement, calling for a deal to free all those still captive. “There is a window of opportunity; we must not miss it.”
Shoham, who also holds Austrian citizenship, was visiting his family in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas militants stormed into the community during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Shoham’s wife, two young children and three other relatives who were abducted with him were freed in a November 2023 exchange.
Mengistu, an Ethiopian Israeli, had been held in Gaza since entering on his own in 2014. Watching the handover on Israeli media, Mengistu’s family and friends broke out into a Hebrew song, “Here is the Light,” as they saw him for the first time in more than a decade. “Do you remember me?” one of his brothers asks as they embraced at the hospital.
The Israeli military said the final hostage, Hisham al-Sayed, 36, was released later Saturday. The Bedouin Israeli crossed on his own into Gaza in 2015 and had been held since. His family has told Israeli media Al-Sayed was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia.
A Palestinian woman who lost 10 children and her husband shelters in her shattered Gaza home, where four of her youngest remain buried under rubble.
The six men are expected to be the last living hostages freed during the cease-fire’s first phase. The dispute over Shiri Bibas’ body had raised new doubt about the cease-fire deal, which has paused more than 15 months of war but is nearing the end of its first phase. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens more hostages in exchange for a lasting cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal, are likely to be even more difficult.
Three of the bodies returned Thursday were confirmed as those of Bibas’ sons and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when all were taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 in Israel and ignited the war.
Israel said its tests determined that the hostages had been killed by their captors. Hamas has said Lifshitz and the members of the Bibas family were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
As part of the latest exchange, later Saturday Israel is to release 620 imprisoned Palestinians.
They include 151 who were serving life or other sentences, around 100 of whom will be deported to other countries, according to the Palestinian prisoners media office. They also include 445 men as well as 18 children between the ages of 15 and 17, five between 18-19, and a woman, all of whom were seized by Israeli troops in Gaza during the current war, according to the media office.
Hamas has said it will also release four more bodies next week, completing the first phase of the cease-fire. If that plan is carried out, Hamas would retain about 60 hostages, about half of whom are believed to be alive.
Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting cease-fire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he’s committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.
President Trump’s proposal to remove all 2 million or so Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. can own and rebuild it has thrown the cease-fire into further doubt. His idea has been welcomed by Netanyahu but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries.
Trump said Friday that he was “a little surprised” by rejections of the proposal by Egypt and Jordan and that he would not impose it.
“I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview.
Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble. At its height, the war displaced 90% of Gaza’s population. Many have returned to their homes to find nothing left and no way of rebuilding.
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