JERUSALEM: Hamas was set to release six more hostages from Gaza on Saturday (Feb 22) in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, after Israel confirmed that a body handed over hours earlier was that of hostage Shiri Bibas.
The fragile truce in the war between Israel and Hamas militants had been threatened with derailment by the misidentification of a body released on Thursday as that of Bibas, who was kidnapped with her two young sons and her husband in the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023.
However late on Friday, Hamas handed over another body, which her family said had been confirmed to be hers.
“Last night, our Shiri was returned home,” her family said in a statement, which said she had been identified by Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine.
In Gaza, armed and masked Hamas militants gathered at two locations, in Rafah and Nuseirat, where six living hostages were expected to be handed over to the Red Cross, which arrived at the first site and will transport them to Israeli forces.
They are the last living hostages from a group of 33 due to be freed in the first stage of the ceasefire deal that took effect on Jan 19.
Four of the hostages, Eliya Cohen, 27, Tal Shoham, 40, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23, were seized by Hamas gunmen during their attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
Two others, Hisham Al-Sayed, 36, and Avera Mengistu, 39, have been held by Hamas since they entered Gaza separately under unexplained circumstances around a decade ago.
In return, Israel is expected to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in its jails in the latest stage of an exchange that has largely held.
The Bibas family has been an emblem of the trauma suffered by Israel on that day. The misidentification of the remains of Shiri Bibas, as well as the staged handover of their coffins by Hamas outraged Israelis. Her husband Yarden, seized and held separately from his family, was freed on Feb 1.
The Israeli military said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of 10-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel showed both had been killed deliberately by their captors.
Source: CNA
