 "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. File image/ Reuters")
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that Hamas has to pay for not sending back the body of hostage Shiri Bibas as agreed under the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israel has said that one of the bodies returned from Gaza is not that of Shiri Bibas, as claimed by Hamas, and accused Palestinian “terrorists” of killing her two boys who have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal. Four hostage bodies were repatriated by Hamas on Thursday.
Netanyahu said that the Palestinian terrorist group has acted “in an unspeakably cynical manner” by sending a Gazan woman’s body in a coffin instead of that of Shiri’s along with the bodies of her two sons Kfir and Ariel Bibas.
“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages - both living and dead - and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he said in a video statement.
‘Mix up’
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Shiri Bibas’ remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains after being buried in the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli air strike.
“Netanyahu himself issued the orders for the direct and merciless bombing, and he bears full responsibility for killing her and her children,” he said in a statement.
Just a month after the Bibas family was kidnapped, Hamas said that the children and their mother were killed in an Israeli air strike. However, this claim was rejected by Israel which said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of the Bibas children indicated that they were deliberately killed by their captors.
Impact Shorts
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The Israeli envoy to the UN on Friday called on the Security Council to condemn the return of an anonymous body instead of the mother of the two children, Shiri Bibas.
Danny Danon, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, accused Hamas of returning the bodies like “worthless shipments” and said, “This is a new low, an evil and cruelty with no parallel.”
“There are no words that can describe such an atrocity. Hamas not only murdered Ariel and Kfir Bibas in cold blood – a 4-year-old boy and a 10-month-old baby – but continue to violate every basic moral value even after their death," he added.
With inputs from agencies