[UPDATE 8:18 PM]: Israel has announced that the Bibas family’s bodies are due to be returned Thursday:
Israel has confirmed that Hamas’ youngest hostages, Kfira and Ariel Bibas, and their mother have been killed in Gaza — and their bodies will be returned to the Jewish state.
The news came as a crushing blow to the Bibas family, who continue to hold onto hope that the brothers and their mother, Shiri, are still alive until they return home.
Ofri Bibas, Shiri’s sister-in-law, said the family’s faith would not waver as she slammed the Israeli government for publicly naming her loved ones as dead on Wednesday before recieving their bodies.
“For 16 months, we have been waiting for certainty that they couldn’t provide us, and now it’s being decided before they’re even here?? Before they’ve undergone identification??,” Ofri wrote on Facebook.
The announcement by Israel is somewhat confusing to me. It’s been clear for a long long time that it’s highly likely the mother and her two children are dead – Hamas had announced it many many months ago. But Israel kept saying it couldn’t be confirmed. Are they actually confirming it now? And based on what new information? If there is no new information, why not wait till the bodies are identified?
There is a fourth person whose body is being returned Thursday. It is Oded Lifshitz, 84, “a veteran peace activist.”
So a mother in the prime of life, a baby, and a toddler; plus an elderly man. Hamas must be so proud. And it shouldn’t escape notice that Lifshitz was a peace activist. Not only has Lifshitz died, but that dream died, too – on October 7. His elderly wife was also kidnapped, but she was released in one of the first exchanges. Now she must deal with the knowledge of his death in captivity.]
The plan is for six living hostages to be returned to Israel on Saturday. After that, it will be just dead bodies being returned, to end Phase I over two more weeks. Six living hostages in one day represents a doubling of the usual number, although I don’t know what that may signify.
There’s also a report that Hamas has said they’ll release all the hostages in Phase II if Israel promises a permanent ceasefire (and basically, a Hamas win). That’s not an acceptable offer, of course. But so tempting, to get all the hostages back.
From that first link:
… [Four of the living hostages to be released], all of whom were taken on October 7, 2023, include father Tal Shoham and three young men kidnapped from the Nova music festival: Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert and Eliya Cohen.
The other two of the living hostages due to be released were taken about a decade ago. Yes, a decade: 2014 and 2015. It’s amazing that they’re alive. Their names are Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, both entered Gaza voluntarily, and both have long-term mental health issues:
According to his family and Israeli officials, Mengistu crossed into northern Gaza from the beach at Zikim in September 2014.
The then-28-year-old was spotted by IDF security cameras, but made it through the fence before troops could reach the scene. He was picked up by a Hamas patrol and was not heard from until the terror group released a video purporting to show him alive in early 2023.
Mengistu hails from Ashkelon’s working-class Ethiopian-Israeli community. According to his family, he suffered from mental illness, and was given an exemption from military service. …
Al-Sayed, a 28-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the village of Hura in the Negev desert, entered the Strip near the Erez Crossing in April 2015.
According to his father, this was not his first time going into Gaza, but in this case he was stopped by Hamas and taken into its custody. …
Like Mengistu, al-Sayed suffered from mental illness [schizophrenia, in his case], though he briefly served in the military before being discharged. …
The stories of the other four are much like ones we’ve heard before: they witnessed terrible things prior to being kidnapped, and they have been mistreated while in captivity. Just to take one story, Wenkert’s last text to his parents said he was “scared to death.” He also suffers from colitis, a very serious bowel disorder, and back in November of 2023 was already described by some of the freed hostages as being “dangerously underweight” and in need of medical care. And yet he is alive.
I have saved the most sorrowful news for last: Hamas says that tomorrow it will return the bodies of Shira Bibas and her baby and toddler sons. Hamas has said long ago that they were killed by IDF bombs; getting their bodies may or may not tell a different tale. But it is obscene that Hamas would blame Israel for the death of these three in a war that was started by Hamas murdering over a thousand Israelis and kidnapping about 250, including many children, among them the Bibas boys. Obscene, but typical of their propaganda.
The Bibas family has not given up hope, because Israel has not confirmed the deaths. But I think that their deaths have been fairly clear for a long time, and the return of the father without the rest made it almost certain.