Israeli Army Investigates Reports of Hamas Handing Over Second Body Claimed to be Shiri Bibas
Jerusalem, January 27, 2024 – The Israeli army on Friday night announced that it was investigating reports that Hamas had transferred a second body to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which the Palestinian group claimed to be that of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas. The development came after the release of an initial body on Thursday, which turned out not to be Bibas’s remains.
"Information regarding Shiri Bibas is currently being examined," said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani on social networking platform X. "Representatives of the [Israeli army] are in contact with the family," he added.
The Times of Israel newspaper, citing two unnamed officials, reported that the ICRC had retrieved a second body from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"We are going through difficult and uncertain hours; we hope that Hamas will not disappoint us," said Gilad Bodenheimer, an official at Israel’s Health Ministry.
The news emerged after Israeli authorities confirmed earlier in the day that forensic tests conducted by the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv on the first body handed over by the Red Cross on Thursday, and identified by Hamas as Shiri Bibas, revealed instead that it belonged to an unidentified woman. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Friday that the body was that of a Gazan woman.
On Thursday, Hamas had transferred four bodies to the ICRC, which included Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who were 8.5 months and four years old, respectively, when they were abducted during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war. The fourth body was that of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 at the time of his capture. While the remains of Lifshitz and the two Bibas boys have been positively identified, the female body was not that of their mother, Israeli authorities have said.
The four bodies were returned to Israel as part of a ceasefire agreement that entered into effect on January 19, following 15 months of warfare in the Gaza Strip. Since then, several exchanges of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel have taken place. Another exchange is scheduled for Saturday.
