Shock and outrage after release of hostage remains shows body of Shiri Bibas not released, 3 others murdered in captivity

Shock and outrage after release of hostage remains shows body of Shiri Bibas not released, 3 others murdered in captivity

All Israel News Staff

There was an outpouring of outrage following the cruel release ceremony on Thursday, in which Hamas paraded the coffins of Israeli hostages on a stage decorated with fake bombs and Hamas propaganda including a disturbing mural depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire drinking the blood of the Israeli hostages.

That outrage intensified after findings showed that the hostages had been murdered in captivity, and not killed in an Israeli airstrike, as Hamas had claimed. 

The autopsy of the bodies also showed that the body in the coffin listed as Shiri Bibas, wife of released hostage Yarden Bibas, and mother of the two murdered boys Ariel and Kfir Bibas, was not Shiri, and in fact, did not match any of the Israeli hostages taken. 

Sources who dealt with the identification of the bodies told Hebrew media that intelligence and forensic findings indicated that the terrorists murdered Ariel and Kfir in captivity in early November 2023, about a month after they were kidnapped. 

The IDF released a statement saying it had "forensic and intelligence evidence that they were brutally murdered," thus contradicting the Hamas claim that Kfir and Ariel Bibas were killed in an air force attack.” 

Public broadcaster Kan 11 also ran a report stating that Hamas had placed more propaganda material inside the coffins. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a message to 𝕏, following the autopsy report that the body of Shiri was not returned, but that of another woman. 

“The State of Israel bows its head to two small children, tender babies, brothers - Ariel and Kfir Bibas, may their memory be blessed, and to Oded Lipshitz, may his memory be blessed, one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz,” Netanyahu wrote. “All three were murdered with terrible cruelty in Hamas captivity in the first weeks of the war.” 

“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds,” he continued. “Not only did they kidnap the father, Yarden Bibas, the young mother, Shiri, and their two small babies. In an unspeakably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri beside her little children, the little angels, but they put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin.” 

Netanyahu promised that Israel would “work resolutely to bring Shiri home together with all our abductees - both living and dead - and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement.”

The prime minister ended by saying, “May God avenge their blood. And we will also avenge them.” 

German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert posted a message after the announcement, calling Hamas “merciless terrorists” and “cruel liars.”