Hamas handed over the bodies on Thursday of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack and among the most potent symbols of the trauma inflicted that day.
Posted: Feb 20, 2025 5:26 AM EST | Last Updated: 23 minutes ago
Hamas handed over the bodies under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing ofthe United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. One militant stood beside a poster of a man standing over coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. Instead of legs he had tree roots in the ground, suggesting the land belongs to Palestinians.The Bibas family, including their father Yarden, were abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza on October 7.
"We wake up to a difficult morning for all of us. A morning that sharpens the cruelty of our enemies and the justice of our determined war against them until they are destroyed from the face of the earth," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on the X social media platform. The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.
But successive surveys have shown broad support among the public for the ceasefire, and thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demand the government stick to the deal until all the remaining hostages are returned.
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