Middle East crisis live: Shiri Bibas remains have been mixed with other remains after airstrike, Hamas says
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other remains after airstrike
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains in rubble after Israeli airstrike, according to the Reuters news agency.
Key events
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel should not remain silent over the “severe violation” carried out by the Palestinian group.
Smotrich was reacting to the claim made by the Israeli military that one of the four bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday was an unidentified woman and not Shiri Bibas as they claimed.
“The severe violation by Hamas and the ongoing abuse cannot be faced with silence. And neither can the certain knowledge that they brutally murdered the young Ariel and Kfir in captivity,” he added, referring to Bibas’s two children whose bodies were returned yesterday.
Smotrich said: “The only solution is the destruction of Hamas, and it must not be delayed.”
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other remains after airstrike
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains in rubble after Israeli airstrike, according to the Reuters news agency.
Editorial
The pain and damage wreaked in the last 16 months will reverberate through families, communities and the Middle East for decades to come. On Thursday, the bodies of two young children and their mother, and that of an 83-year-old peace activist, were returned to Israel by Hamas. They were kidnapped in the 7 October 2023 raid in which the militants killed around 1,200 Israelis and others. Around 48,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war in response.
It was always feared that the ceasefire deal, which has brought desperately needed respite for Palestinians in Gaza and the return of Israeli and foreign hostages, would be fleeting. The six-week opening stage is due to expire on 1 March. The talks on the more complicated second stage have yet to begin, more than a fortnight after they were due…
Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, expressed outrage this morning at Hamas’s “horrific violation” after the Israeli military said the jihadist group handed over the body of an unidentified Gazan woman while claiming it was Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas.
“The bodies of Ariel and Kfir, so pure and innocent, were identified, while their beloved mother, Shiri, remains in captivity,” says Herzog in a statement. “This is a shocking and horrific violation of the ceasefire agreement, another cruel act by the terrorists of Hamas, who continue to show utter disregard for humanity.”
Herzog says Israel is “anxiously await[ing] the expected release of six more hostages this weekend,” and says the country must “do everything in our power to bring every one of our kidnapped sisters and brothers home. All of them. Until the very last one.”
Madawi al-Rasheed
Here’s an opinion piece on today’s diplomatic summit in Riyadh, which will discuss plans for Gaza’s future, penned by Madawi al-Rasheed, a fellow of the British Academy and a visiting professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics.
Extract: Saudi Arabia has suddenly experienced a diplomatic awakening after lukewarm engagement with the conflict in Gaza. Today, leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will gather in Riyadh to discuss Donald Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza. (Keen to be viewed as a global deal maker, Saudi Arabia will also be hosting negotiations over Ukraine this week.)
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was alarmed by Trump’s outrageous “Riviera plan” to reconstruct Gaza following eviction of its people to neighbouring countries. Alongside Arab leaders, he hopes to propose an alternative plan with the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital at its core. The crown prince has insisted that there will be no normalisation of Israel without a Palestinian state…
The Wafa news agency reports that Israeli forces continued their assault on Tulkarm, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and its refugee camp overnight, inflicting extensive destruction to homes and civilian properties.
Entire neighbourhoods are reportedly in ruins, with small businesses and residential properties bearing the brunt of the damage, including the Nour Shams Association for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, which provides vital humanitarian and social programs for people with disabilities in the camp and the city.
Entire homes were also bulldozed in an apparent effort to construct a road in the refugee camp.
In the eastern district of Tulkarm city, Israeli forces vandalised and occupied residential buildings, converting them into military outposts.
William Christou
Thirty metres under the city of Kobani, north-east Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) kept a watchful eye on the Turkish border. A plasma screen TV displayed 16 surveillance feeds to officers in a room in one of the Kurdish-led militia’s tunnels, where Kalashnikovs and SDF flags adorned the walls.
The soldiers dare not emerge from the tunnels, fearful of being picked off by the Turkish drones buzzing overhead. They move between facilities in the subterranean network on foot, emerging from entrances hidden in nondescript buildings.
“Most of our forces are currently concentrated in the tunnels. When Turkey started threatening us, we started going underground,” Zinarin Kobane, the commander of the SDF’s Euphrates region, said during a rare tour of the SDF’s tunnel network…
Israel accuses Hamas of ‘violation of utmost severity’
Helen Livingstone
One of the four bodies returned by Hamas to Israel on Thursday is not that of Shiri Bibas, Israel’s military has said, calling it a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
The Israeli military confirmed that two of the bodies belonged to Bibas’ children, Ariel and Kfir, in the early hours of Friday. However, it added “During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body”…
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has condemned Hamas after the Israeli military said one of the bodies released by the militant group did not belong to Shiri Bibas or any of the captives held in Gaza, accusing it of violating the ceasefire.
“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds,” he said in video statement.
Netanyahu added that his government will “ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement”.
“We will work with determination to bring Shiri home together with all our hostages — both living and dead — and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and malicious violation of the agreement,” Netanyahu said.
“The sacred memory of Oded Lifshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will be forever enshrined in the heart of the nation. May God avenge their blood. And so we will avenge,” he added.
Summary
We’re pausing our live coverage of the Middle East crisis now – it’s approaching 4.30am in Tel Aviv and Gaza City. You can read all the key developments in our latest full report. Here’s where things stand:
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One of the four bodies Hamas handed over on Thursday is not that of Shiri Bibas, the Israeli military has said, calling it a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that is already fragile.
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The military confirmed on Friday that two of the bodies returned to Israel belonged to Bibas’ children, Ariel and Kfir, but said that during the identification process it was determined the additional body received was not Shiri Bibas and no match was found for any other hostage. “This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the Israel Defense Forces said. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.” There was no immediate response from Hamas.
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Bibas and her children became a symbol of the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023. The militant group has said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the war. However, the IDF said on Friday that they had been murdered in Gaza, posting on X: “According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.”
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The IDF’s statement came hours after Israeli prime Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to conduct an “intense operation” against “terror hubs” in the occupied West Bank after a series of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a city outside Tel Aviv, that authorities said was a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported. The IDF said it had been decided to reinforce Israeli troops with three battalions.
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Explosives were found on two other buses but did not detonate, Israeli police said. The five bombs were identical and equipped with timers, and bomb squads were defusing the unexploded bombs, they said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosions
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Thursday’s handover of bodies is to be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Here’s more on Israeli hostage Oded Lifshitz, whose body was returned to Israel on Thursday.
Agence France-Presse reports the veteran journalist was a long-time defender of Palestinian rights and a founder of the Nir Oz kibbutz where he lived and was abducted, aged 83, during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, alongside his wife Yocheved Lifshitz, 85. She was released 16 days later for what Hamas called “humanitarian reasons”.
Interviewed on Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday, she said her husband had “fought for the Palestinians his whole life – they betrayed him and took him to hell”.
In a long career with the now defunct, left-leaning newspaper Al-Hamishmar, Oded Lifshitz defended Palestinian rights and advocated for peace. In 1972, he defended Bedouins who were expelled from the Sinai Peninsula by occupying Israeli authorities. A decade later, he was one of the first journalists to report on the Sabra and Shatila massacres in which Israeli-backed Christian militias killed between 800 and 2,000 Palestinians in Beirut refugee camps.
More recently, Lifshitz – an Arabic speaker – had been actively involved for years with Road to Recovery, an organisation which helps Palestinians receive medical treatment in Israel.
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who had met with his daughter, said he was “deeply saddened” to hear of Lifshitz’s death, saying in a statement:
It is my hope that the peace he worked to see in the region through his charity work and activism will be achieved.
The Israeli military’s accusation that Hamas has breached the ceasefire with a “violation of utmost severity” came just hours after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a further crackdown on the occupied West Bank over a series of bus explosions.
Full more on that and all the latest key developments, see our new full report here:
Oded Lifshitz’s body formally identified, says family
The family of Oded Lifshitz have said in a statement that his body has been formally identified, Reuters reports.
His body was released by Hamas in Gaza on Thursday along with three others under the ceasefire deal reached last month.
Lifshitz, an 85-year-old peace activist and retired journalist, had not previously been confirmed as dead. He had been abducted by militants and brought to Gaza on 7 October 2023. Hamas released his wife, Yocheved Lifshitz, in November 2023.
The Israeli military said on Friday that two of the four bodies released were identified as infant Kfir and his brother Ariel Bibas while a third body that was supposed to be their mother, Shiri, was found not to match with any hostage and remained unidentified, the military said. It accused the militant group of violating the already fragile ceasefire.
There was no immediate response from Hamas.
The Israeli military says it is to bolster its troops in the West Bank with three battalions and is ready to “expand offensive activities”.
An Israel Defense Forces post on X, translated from the Hebrew, said:
According to the situation assessment, it was decided to reinforce with three battalions in the Central Command sector.
The IDF continues to conduct ongoing situation assessments and is prepared to expand offensive activities. The operation to thwart terrorism in northern Samaria continues constantly.
The IDF will continue to act defensively and offensively to ensure the security of Israeli civilians.
Netanyahu orders ‘intensive’ military operation in West Bank
Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the Israeli military to carry out an intensive operation against what he called “centres of terrorism” in the West Bank.
The Israeli prime minister also said on social media that he had ordered Shin Bet and police to increase “preventative” measures against attacks on Israeli cities.
The move comes after a series of blasts on three parked buses on Thursday which Israeli authorities said was a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported.
A post from Netanyahu’s prime ministerial account on X said today:
The Prime Minister has ordered the IDF to carry out an intensive operation against centers of terrorism in Judea and Samaria. The Prime Minister also ordered the Israel Police and the ISA [Israeli security agency] to increase preventative activity against additional attacks in Israeli cities.
The Israeli military has said the two Bibas boys were “murdered by terrorists” in Gaza.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said earlier that Ariel and Kfir Bibas had been identified after their bodies were released by Hamas on Thursday under the current ceasefire agreement.
The boys had been aged four years and nine months old respectively when they were abducted by Hamas.
The militant group has claimed the two children were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The IDF posted on X today:
According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East crisis.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has accused Hamas of a “very serious violation” of the terms of the hostage handover, saying the body of Shiri Bibas was not among the bodies received on Thursday.
It said in a statement: “During the identification process, it was found that the additional body received was not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other abductee.” The bodies of her children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were four years and nine months old respectively, had been identified, the IDF said.
The military has demanded that the body of Shiri Bibas be returned home along with all other hostages. It did not specify a timeframe.
Bibas and her children – who Hamas claims were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the war – became an indelible symbol of the attack of 7 October 2023. Shiri Bibas’s parents were killed in the Hamas offensive, and her husband, Yarden, was taken captive and released earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the military to step up its offensives across the occupied West Bank after a series of bomb blasts involving buses rocked central Israel on Thursday.
“In light of the serious attempted attacks in the Gush Dan [central] area by Palestinian terrorist organisations against the civilian population in Israel, I have instructed the IDF to intensify operations to thwart terrorism in the Tulkarem refugee camp and in all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria” Katz said in a statement, using the biblical term for the West Bank. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the blasts.
More details soon.
