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Hamas Releases New Hostage Body It Claims Is Shiri Bibas
Israelis sit together as they light candles and hold posters with the images Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, on the day the bodies of deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian terror groups as Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children, were handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itay Cohen
Hamas released a body on Friday it claimed to be that of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas, whose misidentification in a handover this week threatened to derail the fragile Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israeli medical authorities said forensic teams were preparing to examine the body, which Hamas transferred via the Red Cross, and confirm its identity.
The Palestinian terrorist group had agreed to hand over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons Kfir and Ariel along with the remains of a fourth hostage on Thursday under the ceasefire that has halted fighting in Gaza since last month.
Four bodies were delivered and the identities of the Bibas boys and the other hostage, Oded Lifshitz, were confirmed.
But Israeli specialists said the fourth body was that of an unidentified woman and not Shiri Bibas, who was kidnapped along with her sons and her husband, Yarden, during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said “unfortunate mistakes” could occur, especially as Israeli bombing had mixed the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians.
“We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign,” he said in a statement.
The failure to hand over the correct body and the staged public handover of the four coffins on Thursday caused outrage in Israel and drew a threat of retaliation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages – both living and dead – and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he said in a video statement.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the children and their mother had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Netanyahu “bears full responsibility for killing her and her children.”
But the Israeli military said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of the Bibas children indicated that they were deliberately killed by their captors. Chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the boys were killed by the terrorists “with their bare hands,” but gave no details.
The UN Human Rights Office said it had no information of its own on the hostage deaths and called for an effective investigation into the causes.
“The return of the remains of the deceased is a basic humanitarian goal,” the office said.
The incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire agreement reached with US backing and with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators last month.
SATURDAY EXCHANGE
Six living hostages were due for release on Saturday in exchange for 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to Hamas, and the start of negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire was expected in the coming days.
“Hamas must return the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire – the living and the deceased,” Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said in a statement on social media platform X. “They have to bring Shiri back, and they have to release the 6 living hostages expected tomorrow.”
Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had been officially informed of the names of the six hostages to be released, which Hamas sources said was expected at around 8:30 am (0630 GMT).
As the tension over the Gaza ceasefire rose, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to intensify operations in another Palestinian territory, the West Bank, after a number of explosions blew up buses standing empty in their depots near Tel Aviv.
No casualties were reported but the explosions were a reminder of the campaign of suicide attacks on public transport that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
‘THEY MAKE A JOKE OF US’
Both Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused the other of ceasefire violations, with Hamas threatening to delay the release of hostages over what it said was Israel‘s refusal to allow housing materials and other aid into Gaza, a charge Israel denied.
The Red Cross told Reuters it was “concerned and unsatisfied” that the handover of the bodies had not been conducted privately and in a dignified manner.
“It’s like they make a joke of us,” said 75-year-old Israeli Ilana Caspi. “We are so in grief and this is even more.”
One of the main groups representing hostage families said it was “horrified and devastated” by the news that Shiri Bibas’ body had not been returned but called for the ceasefire to continue to bring back all 70 hostages still in Gaza.
“Save them from this nightmare,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
Despite the outrage over Shiri Bibas, there was no indication that Israel would not take part in talks over a second phase of the ceasefire deal.
The Israel Hayom newspaper reported that Israeli negotiators were considering seeking an extension of the 42-day ceasefire, to delay moving to a second phase, which would involve talks over hard-to-resolve issues including an end to the war and the future of Hamas in Gaza.
The post Hamas Releases New Hostage Body It Claims Is Shiri Bibas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.