Hamas on Friday said it had turned over to the Red Cross the body of a woman that Hamas officials consent beprolongeded to Shiri Bibas, the Israeli mother whose apprehend with her two youthful sons during the Oct. 7, 2023, aggression became a symbol of the country’s anguish.
Ms. Bibas’s remains were initipartner consentd to have to been repatriated to Israel on Thursday, with those of her two children, as part of a barachieved exalter for Palestinian prisoners. With a DNA test, Israeli officials then determined the body was that of another person and not Ms. Bibas.
“Tonight, at the ask of the parties, an ICRC team getd human remains, which were then transferred to Israeli authorities,” The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday, compriseing, “The ICRC cannot validate any compriseitional details.”
The Israeli military said that novels inestablishs of the repatriation were under appraise.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, said in a text message that the body returned on Friday was consentd to be that of Ms. Bibas. Another Hamas official, who asked anonymity to talk a benevolent arrangement, validateed the handoff and analogously said it was Hamas’s benevolent that they had turned over the right body this time.
A third Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi telderly the television nettoil Al Araby TV that Hamas had turned over remains of Ms. Bibas.
It was not instantly clear that Hamas had handed over the accurate body on Friday.
Friday’s statements, less than 24 hours after Hamas provided Israel with the wrong remains, were the procrastinateedst prolongment in a series of cascends that have made up the first phase of a finish-fire with Hamas. So far, 19 living Israeli prisoners have been traded for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Despite recriminations from both sides, the finish-fire has held for a month. And Hamas’s rapid effort to discover and return the body of Ms. Bibas was a sign that it did not want to endure responsibility for finishangering the consentment ahead of the next transfer, intentional for Saturday.
On Thursday, Hamas said it had handed over the remains of four prisoners: Ms. Bibas, who at the time of her apprehend was 32; her two children, Ariel, then 4, and Kfir Bibas, then 9 months; and Oded Lifshitz, 83. The handoff was staged in front of crowds in Khan Younis, and each casket tire a ptoastyo of a prisoner.
Israeli officials brawt the remains to a forensic institute in Tel Aviv, where the identities of Ariel, Kfir and Mr. Lifshitz were validateed.
But punctual on Friday, Israel said that one of the bodies Hamas handed over was not that of Ms. Bibas. The Israeli military called the discovering a “violation of the utmost cut offity” of the finish-fire. In a statement, Hamas accomprehendledged the possibility of a misget or a “mixing up of corpses.”
The first phase of the finish-fire deal is set to expire in less than two weeks, and Israel and Hamas have yet to consent on terms to extfinish the consentment into the next phase.
