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Hamas Hands Over Bodies of Youngest Gaza Hostages Taken From Israel
Palestinian terrorists and members of the Red Cross gather near vehicles on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Hamas handed over the bodies on Thursday of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack and among the most potent symbols of the trauma inflicted that day.
Red Cross vehicles drove away from the handover site in the Gaza Strip with four black coffins that had been placed on a stage. Each of the caskets had a small picture of the hostages.
Armed Hamas terrorists in black and camouflage uniforms surrounded the area.
After the hostages were handed over by the Red Cross, the coffins were scanned for explosives, according to the military. The coffins of the four deceased hostages have been transported into Israel, the Israeli military said.
Hamas handed over the bodies of the two boys and their mother Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
“Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters,” said Israel‘s President Isaac Herzog.
“On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the defense establishment have faced criticism over the major security breach on Oct. 7, the country’s single deadliest day.
One terrorist stood beside a poster of a man standing over coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. Instead of legs he had tree roots in the ground, suggesting the land belongs to Palestinians. The poster read “The Return of the War=The Return of your Prisoners in Coffins.”
Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but their deaths were never confirmed by Israeli authorities and even at the last minute, some refused to accept they were dead.
“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, which lost around a quarter of its inhabitants, either killed or kidnapped, during the assault. “I still hope that they will be alive.”
Yarden Bibas was returned in an earlier exchange of hostages for prisoners this month. But the family said this week their “journey is not over” until they received final confirmation of what happened to the boys and their mother.
Some of those Israelis killed on Oct. 7 were known peace activists.
Lifshitz was 83 when he was abducted from Nir Oz, the kibbutz he helped found. His wife, Yocheved, 85 at the time, was seized with him and released two weeks later, along with another elderly woman.
He was a former journalist. In an op-ed he published in left-leaning Haaretz in Jan. 2019, titled “Defender of Israel He Is Not,” he questioned Netanyahu’s security credentials and criticized his policies, including on Hamas and Gaza.
Among what he listed as Netanyahu’s policy failures, Lifshitz noted his rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians and a 2011 deal that exchanged more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including hardliner Yahya Sinwar who would become Hamas’s leader in Gaza and the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, for one abducted Israeli soldier.
Israeli forces killed Sinwar during the Gaza war.
The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.
Netanyahu has faced criticism from his far-right coalition allies for agreeing to the deal, which some in Israel feel rewards Hamas and leaves the Palestinian terrorist group in place in Gaza.
But successive surveys have shown broad support among the public for the ceasefire.
Israel launched its war in the Gaza Strip after Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages. The Israeli military campaign aimed to free those who were abducted and dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
LIVING HOSTAGES
Thursday’s handover of bodies will be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians, expected to be women and minors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war.
So far 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thais who were returned in an unscheduled handover.
Negotiations for a second phase, expected to cover the return of around 60 remaining hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow an end to the war, are expected to begin in the coming days.
The issue has also been clouded by US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be resettled outside Gaza, a move critics say would amount to ethnic cleansing, and for the enclave to be developed as a regional economic hub under US control.
The post Hamas Hands Over Bodies of Youngest Gaza Hostages Taken From Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Child Killers’: Jewish Activists Doused With Red Paint in Germany While Hanging Up Hostage Posters
i24 News – Masked attackers doused with red paint and shoved German Jewish activists hanging up posters of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza in Frankfurt on Friday. The assailants shouted “child killers” and “free Palestine.”
Sacha Stawski, a German-Jewish activist who heads the media watchdog NGO Honestly Concerned, who’s spent decades combating antisemitism, spoke to local media about the incident.
“We attached posters with photos of the 50 hostages still in Hamas’s captivity to a fence in the Frankfurt Grüneburgpark,” Stawski told the Bild outlet. “We were branded ‘child killers,’ and I constantly heard ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘genocide’ calls.”
The paint also poured over my glasses, making it difficult for me to identify the perpetrator,” he added.
Germany’s ambassador to Israel condemned the incident.
The small pro-hostage rally took place near an anarchist encampment housing several anti-Israel organizations. Stawski said this was announced to the camp organizers.
Meanwhile a German government spokesman said on Friday that Berlin currently has no plans to recognize a Palestinian state because that would undermine any efforts to reach a negotiated solution with Israel.
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Hegseth Fires Head of Intel Agency Whose Assessment of Damage from Iran Strikes Angered Trump
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
i24 News – US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes sparked the ire of President Donald Trump.
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, US media reported, citing sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
The sacking is the latest upheaval in military leadership and in the country’s intelligence agencies, and comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media.
The assessment found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the bombings, contradicting assertions from Trump and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report.
n June, Israel launched a devastating bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, missile production and military leadership, saying the operation was necessary to prevent the mullah regime from realizing its oft-stated plan to annihilate the Jewish state.
During the ensuing 12-day war, the US joined in, striking key Iranian nuclear sites.
Following the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.
“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.
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Amid Rising Antisemitism, American Jews Make Aliyah to Israel Seeking Safety, Community, Impact
Olim gather at JFK Airport in New York, preparing to board Nefesh B’Nefesh’s 65th charter flight to Israel. Photo: The Algemeiner
NEW YORK/TEL AVIV — Confronted with rising antisemitism and unease in the United States, a growing number of American Jews are choosing to make aliyah, embracing the risks of war in the Middle East for the chance to build new lives and foster meaningful communities.
On Wednesday, 225 new olim arrived in Tel Aviv on the first charter aliyah flight since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Aliyah refers to the process of Jews immigrating to Israel, and olim refers to those who make this journey.
Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) — a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the US and Canada — brought its 65th charter flight from New York, which The Algemeiner joined.
Founded in 2002, NBN helps olim become fully integrated members of Israeli society, simplifying the aliyah process and providing essential resources and guidance.
In partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth, and the Jewish National Fund, NBN has helped nearly 100,000 olim build thriving new lives in Israel.
Shawn Fink is one of the 225 people who embarked on the life-changing journey earlier this week, leaving Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, Liz, and their son.
For Fink and his family, making aliyah was driven not only by their love for Israel and desire to build a new community, but also by the escalating threats and uncertainties facing Jewish communities abroad since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
“Mostly, we were frustrated with the direction the United States is taking, and the rise in antisemitism was a major concern for us,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Like many countries around the world, the US has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to the latest data issued by the FBI, hate crimes perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the federal agency’s counting them.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, who constitute just 2 percent of the US population, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Fink explained that the increasing costs of living a Jewish life in the US — from education to kosher food — weighed heavily on his family’s decision to make the move to Israel.
While they first considered making aliyah five years ago, Fink and his family had to put the plans on hold for personal reasons — returning to the idea only in the past few months when the timing finally worked in their favor.
“We started planning it seriously in November and began the entire process with Nefesh B’Nefesh,” Fink told The Algemeiner. “It’s been a nonstop whirlwind ever since.”
For them, the current war did not stop their plans, but it did influence the cities they explored for their new home.
“The war really reinforced for us the importance of supporting Israel and our community,” Fink said. “By making aliyah, we felt we could do even more to help.”
Even though it is difficult to leave behind family and close friends, they look forward to reconnecting with friends in Israel, making new connections, and building a vibrant new community.
“Making aliyah in less than six months has been a whirlwind. I’d encourage anyone considering it to give themselves at least twice as much time, double the budget, and be prepared for plenty of unexpected starts and stops along the way,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Nefesh B’Nefesh provides assistance to families throughout their entire aliyah journey, offering guidance before relocating and continued support once in Israel.
The Israeli government also complements these efforts with resources and financial incentives to help newcomers settle and ease their transition into their new lives.
“Once the ticket is finally in your hand and you’re waiting to board the plane, you realize that all the challenges and obstacles along the way were worth it,” Fink said.
Veronica Zaragovia was also one of the 225 olim who joined the flight earlier this week.
Similarly to Fink and his family, Zaragovia decided to make aliyah, driven not just by her love for Israel, but also by the increasing challenges of being Jewish abroad and the hope of making a meaningful impact by serving her community.
From Florida, she embarked on the journey alone, excited for all the new opportunities and possibilities that awaited her in her new home.
“I want to take pride in being Jewish and in Israel — that’s why I’m making aliyah,” she told The Algemeiner, reflecting on the move she has been planning for the past two years.
“It’s a huge concern for me that in some places in the US, I can’t — or maybe shouldn’t — wear my Star of David necklace,” she said. “I don’t feel that Jews can be fully safe anywhere in the country. The rise in antisemitism has been truly shocking and deeply concerning.”
Zaragovia, who worked as a journalist in the US, said her love for storytelling and uncovering the truth played a key role in her decision to make this move.
“After Oct. 7, I felt that the way my colleagues and other journalists were covering Israel was wrong and unfair,” she said.
“As someone whose career is built on facts and truth, I didn’t see that reflected in their reporting. That’s why I decided to make a difference by being there myself,” she continued.
Rather than deterring her decision to make a change, Zaragovia explained that the current war only reinforced it.
“It became clear that I needed to go, be there with my people, and make a difference through my work,” she said. “I couldn’t have done this without Nefesh B’Nefesh. They’ve been incredible, guiding me every step of the way from start to finish.”