 "A man rides past a banner with pictures of hostages, on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire. Reuters")
Palestinian group Hamas, on Thursday (February 20), handed over four coffins with the bodies of Israeli hostages to Red Cross. The handover took place in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Each of the caskets had a small picture of the hostages.
Red Cross staff loaded the caskets onto trucks after covering them in white shrouds as a crowd of hundreds watched in the rain.
Bodies of youngest hostages released
Among those handed over are the bodies of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 attack.
Hamas handed over the bodies of two boys and their mother, Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz.
Kfir was nine months old when his family, including his father Yarden, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz. This community, along with others near Gaza, was overrun by Hamas-led attackers on October 7.
In November 2023, Hamas had said that the people of the Bibas family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. However, Israeli authorties never confirmed their deaths. Even until the bodies were handed over, some refused to accept Shiri and her two boys were dead.
Fragile ceasefire holds
The exchange of the four hostages’ bodies was part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement that took effect on January 19. The hostage exchange deal was facilitated by the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
Despite accusations on both sides of ceasefire breaches, the fragile deal has held up amid a series of exchanges of Israeli captives in Gaza for Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
After the bodies of the captives were handed over to Red Cross, they were then transferred to the Israeli military, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“The hostages’ bodies were handed over to IDF [Israel Defence Forces] and ISA [Israel Security Agency] representatives in Gaza,” a military spokesperson said.
With inputs from agencies