Sad certainty
Youngest Hamas hostages and their mother are dead
Hamas hands over four hostages' bodies to Israel on Thursday. It is now clear who they are - a German-Israeli mother, her two small children and an 84-year-old man. The Forum of Hostage Families has confirmed their deaths.
Kronen Zeitung als bevorzugte Google-Quelle hinzufügen "We have received the shocking news that Shiri Bibas, her children Ariel and Kfir and Oded Lifshitz are no longer with us," the forum announced on Wednesday. The young children are the youngest hostages of Hamas. The terrorist organization had already declared the Bibas family dead in November 2023. They had been killed in Israeli bombardments, it said. From Israel's point of view, however, there was no conclusive confirmation of the deaths.
On Tuesday, Hamas finally announced that the three bodies would be handed over to Israel. The husband and father Yarden Bibas was released on February 1. On Wednesday, the body of another hostage, 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz, was announced.
Six live hostages are also to be released on Saturday. These are the last of the 33 hostages to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire agreement. They are the Austrian-Israeli dual citizen Tal Shoham (39), three young men named Omer Wenkert (23), Omer Shem-Tov (22) and Eliya Cohen (27), who were kidnapped from the Nova Festival, and two mentally ill men. The latter have been detained in the Gaza Strip for a decade. The Ethiopian-born Israeli Avera Mengistu (37) voluntarily entered the Gaza Strip in 2014, as did the Israeli Bedouin Hisham al-Sayed (37) a year later.
Israel has bodies identified
In return for the four bodies, Israel's government is releasing all Palestinian women and minors who have been arrested since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023 and are not believed to have been involved in the fighting.
The four bodies of the hostages are to be clearly identified. The cause of death is also to be ascertained.
The second phase of the ceasefire is due to begin on March 2. Hamas said on Wednesday that it was prepared to release all the remaining hostages together. A total of 251 hostages were abducted in the Gaza Strip. In the third phase of the agreement, the reconstruction of the destroyed coastal area is to be initiated.
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