Hamas violated its ceasefire agreement with Israel and returned an unidentified body instead of an Israeli hostage during a larger handover of remains on Thursday.
The Israel Defense Forces said early Friday local time it confirmed it had received the remains of hostages Kfir Bibas, who was 10 months old at the time of his death, and his brother Ariel Bibas, who was 4.
Both boys were “were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023,” according to the Israeli military.
After testing, a third body, initially presumed to be their mother, Shiri Bibas, 32, matched neither her identity nor that of any other hostage held by Hamas, according to the IDF.
“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” the military wrote in a statement on X. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”
On Thursday, the remains of Oded Lifshitz, an elderly peace activist from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were also returned to Israel.
The military said he was “murdered” in captivity by the group Islamic Jihad.
Hamas has said all four hostages were killed in Israeli air strikes.
The militant group handed over four coffins with the remains during a provocative ceremony on Thursday featuring blaring music and a poster with an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stylized as a vampire, along with text calling him a “war criminal” leading a “Nazi army.”
Yarden Bibas, Shiri Bibas’s husband and the father of Kfir and Ariel, was released alive earlier this month.
The Bibas family became known nationwide, after Shiri was captured on video swaddling her sons and being carried away by militants during Hama’s October 7 cross-border attack on Israel, in which more than 250 hostages were taken.
The allegedly fraudulent handover of the hostage remains, as well as the explosions of three buses in Israel in a suspected terror attack on Thursday, threatens to destroy the already fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect in January.
Last week, Hamas threatened to postpone a planned release of hostages, accusing Israel of breaking the terms of the ceasefire by shelling the territory and not allowing in humanitarian aid.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, threatened the militant group that “all hell is going to break lose” if they backed out of the deal.
Dramatic last-minute negotiations involving Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. ensured additional hostage releases and prevented the full collapse of the ceasefire, which is only in the first of three potential stages.
Netanyahu has vowed to eliminate Hamas.
“Our heart may be broken but our spirit is not,” he said in a video address on Thursday. “And with this spirit: We will return all of our hostages. We will destroy the murderers; we will eliminate Hamas. And together, with God’s help, we will ensure our future.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a similar message on Thursday.
“We extend our deepest sympathies for the victims’ families who have suffered the unimaginable,” he wrote on X. “Hamas is evil – pure evil – and must be eradicated. ALL hostages must come home NOW.”
