Hamas will pay 'full price' for failing to return Shiri Bibas' remains, Netanyahu says
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would make Hamas pay the full price for failing to return the remains of Shiri Bibas, the mom of the two youngest hostages.
Grief, outrage and confusion consumed Israel on Friday after its military said Hamas had failed to return the body of Shiri Bibas, the mother of the two youngest hostages taken captive Oct. 7, 2023.
While Hamas returned the bodies of her sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were just 4 years old and 9 months old when they were captured, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that identification efforts found the female remains belonged to an “anonymous body.”
Accusing Hamas of “an unimaginably cynical act,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday said Hamas had not returned “Shiri alongside her small children — these little angels — and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in the coffin.”
Later, Hamas’ media office said Bibas’ remains may have been “mixed” with others when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed her and her sons.
Israel has accused Hamas of murdering the Bibas family members in November 2023, the month after they were taken hostage.
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