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‘The Saddest Day Yet:’ Israel Mourns as Slain Hostages Return Following Grotesque Hamas Ceremony
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Thousands of Israelis flooded the streets on Thursday as they escorted the remains of four slain hostages on their final journey home.
After 503 days in captivity, the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two sons, Ariel and Kfir — the youngest hostages abducted by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023 — were returned to Israel.
The procession moved steadily through the country, beginning at Kissufim, a kibbutz that came under attack from Hamas. Around noon, the convoy reached Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, where forensic examiners later confirmed the identity of the remains of Lifshitz. The grim announcement marked the end of a long and painful wait for the family of the 84-year-old, a former journalist and peace activist who served as a volunteer driving sick Palestinians from Gaza to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.
Orange balloons on a gate outside the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv. Photo: Debbie Weiss
“I came to give my respects and to show that we’re here, not giving up on anyone, and we don’t want any more hostages arriving like this, in coffins at Abu Kabir,” Limor Flang, one of the mourners, told The Algemeiner.
Limor Flang. Photo: Debbie Weiss
The road to this moment had been lined with horror. Hours earlier, in a grisly spectacle, Hamas had staged what it called a victory celebration in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza. The Palestinian terrorist group placed the coffins of the four hostages on a makeshift stage in an abandoned cemetery, turning their deaths into a theatrical condemnation of Israel and its leadership.
Lining the back of the stage was a massive poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shown as a vampire dripping with blood, with the four slain hostages in front of him alongside the sentence: “The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Israeli warplanes.” Around the stage, mock missiles bore messages shifting the blame onto Israel and the United States. One read: “They were killed by USA bombs.”
Thousands of onlookers had gathered, including many children and babies, cheering as masked Hamas terrorists brandished weapons. Music blared from loudspeakers, punctuated by chants of victory.
Flang said she refused to watch footage of the grotesque display Hamas had orchestrated earlier that day. “I respected the families’ wishes not to watch any videos or look at any images out of there.”
As the ceremony unfolded, Hamas officials met with representatives from the International Red Cross to sign off on the transfer of the remains. Photographs of the hostages were arranged alongside the date “11-2023,” an apparent attempt to suggest that they had been killed in Israeli airstrikes last November. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear.
For Israeli forces who had fought to bring the hostages home, the day carried an added weight. Amir Ettinger, an Israeli journalist who had served as a reservist in Gaza, recalled the desperate efforts to retrieve the remains after receiving intelligence indicating where the bodies were.
“It was one of those sweltering summer days in July,” he wrote on X. “We were on our last operation before leaving the Netzarim Corridor. For days, we operated on the outskirts of Gaza City. There was intelligence about the bodies of hostages. We dug in the yard with shovels and removed debris with our hands, while around us were enemies and tank fire. We went through the debris for nearly a day but found nothing.”
Eli from Arad, another mourner outside Abu Kabir, expressed his frustration at what he saw as Israel’s repeated concessions to Hamas. “It’s horrible to see them come back like this, but it’s worse because we could have saved them if we had been more forceful. We’ve been making mistakes since the 1990s — since asonlo,” he said, using a portmanteau of the Hebrew word for “disaster” and the Oslo peace process.
Israelis mourning as slain hostages return to Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: Debbie Weiss
Yossi Levy, who had made the journey from the northern town of Nahariyya, expressed his hope that no more hostages would die. “This is the saddest day. The fate of Israel has been sealed with the sight of these four coffins,” said “Let’s hope this is the last day like this.”
Efrat, whose uncle and aunt, Gadi and Margalit Mozes, had been kidnapped and later released by Hamas, said she wanted the world to understand the broader implications of terrorism. The Mozeses were close friends of Lifshitz, and lived close to each other on Kibbutz Nir Oz.
“This national sadness doesn’t belong only to Israel. The entire Western world, which shares our values and morals, should be frightened by what terrorism can bring,” she said. “People who cry for peace and pacifism, who advocate for respect and the rights of native peoples, should do so only after they really understand who it is they are protecting.”
The mourning reached beyond Israel’s borders. Argentine President Javier Milei declared a day of national mourning in honor of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were dual Argentine-Israeli nationals. In central London, hundreds turned out holding Israeli flags and dressed in black for a mock funeral.
Mock funeral in London for slain Israeli hostages. Photo: Elliott Franks
The post ‘The Saddest Day Yet:’ Israel Mourns as Slain Hostages Return Following Grotesque Hamas Ceremony first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK, France, Germany Urge Gaza Ceasefire, Ask Israel to Restore Humanitarian Access
People walk among destroyed buildings in Gaza, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
The governments of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on Friday that also called on Israel to restore humanitarian access.
“We call on Israel to restore humanitarian access, including water and electricity, and ensure access to medical care and temporary medical evacuations in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministers of the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.
The ministers said they were “appalled by the civilian casualties,” and also called on Palestinian Hamas terrorists to release Israeli hostages.
They said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could not be resolved through military means, and that a long-lasting ceasefire was the only credible pathway to peace.
The ministers added that they were “deeply shocked” by the incident that affected the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) building in Gaza, and called for an investigation into the incident.
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Israeli Military Says It Intercepted Missile Fired from Yemen; Houthis Claim Responsibility
FILE PHOTO: Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released November 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Friday, one day after shooting down two projectiles launched by Houthi terrorists.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it fired a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a televised statement in the early hours of Saturday.
Saree said the attack against Israel was the group’s third in 48 hours.
He issued a warning to airlines that the Israeli airport was “no longer safe for air travel and would continue to be so until the Israeli aggression against Gaza ends and the blockade is lifted.”
However, the airport’s website seemed to be operating normally and showed a list of scheduled flights.
The group’s military spokesman has also said without providing evidence that the Houthis had launched attacks against the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
The group recently vowed to escalate attacks, including those targeting Israel, in response to US strikes earlier this month, which amount to the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. The US attacks have killed at least 50 people.
The Houthis’ fresh attacks come under a pledge to expand their range of targets in Israel in retaliation for renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed hundreds after weeks of relative calm.
The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
The Houthis are part of what has been dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” – an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all backed by Iran.
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Columbia University Agrees to Some Trump Demands in Attempt to Restore Funding
A pro-Palestine protester holds a sign that reads: “Faculty for justice in Palestine” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel. November 15, 2023 in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Columbia University agreed to some changes demanded by US President Donald Trump’s administration before it can negotiate to regain federal funding that was pulled this month over allegations the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
The Ivy League university in New York City acquiesced to several demands in a 4,000-word message from its interim president released on Friday. It laid out plans to reform its disciplinary process, hire security officers with arrest powers and appoint a new official with a broad remit to review departments that offer courses on the Middle East.
Columbia’s dramatic concessions to the government’s extraordinary demands, which stem from protests that convulsed the Manhattan campus over the Israel-Gaza war, immediately prompted criticism. The outcome could have broad ramifications as the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of similar action.
What Columbia would do with its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department was among the biggest questions facing the university as it confronted the cancellation, called unconstitutional by legal and civil groups, of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and contracts. The Trump administration had told the school to place the department under academic receivership for at least five years, taking control away from its faculty.
Academic receivership is a rare step taken by a university’s administrators to fix a dysfunctional department by appointing a professor or administrator outside the department to take over.
Columbia did not refer to receivership in Friday’s message. The university said it would appoint a new senior administrator to review leadership and to ensure programs are balanced at MESAAS, the Middle East Institute, the Center for Palestine Studies, the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and other departments with Middle East programs, along with Columbia’s satellite hubs in Tel Aviv and Amman.
‘TERRIBLE PRECEDENT’
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian of education at the University of Pennsylvania and a “proud” graduate of Columbia, called it a sad day for the university.
“Historically, there is no precedent for this,” Zimmerman said. “The government is using the money as a cudgel to micromanage a university.”
Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University professor and president of the American Association of University Professors, called the Trump administration’s demands “arguably the greatest incursion into academic freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy that we’ve seen since the McCarthy era.”
“It sets a terrible precedent,” Wolfson said. “I know every academic faculty member in this country is angry about Columbia University’s inability to stand up to a bully.”
In a campus-wide email, Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, wrote that the her priorities were “to advance our mission, ensure uninterrupted academic activities, and make every student, faculty, and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.”
Mohammad Hemeida, an undergraduate who chairs Columbia’s Student Governing Board, said the school should have sought more student and faculty input.
“It’s incredibly disappointing Columbia gave in to government pressure instead of standing firm on the commitments to students and to academic freedom, which they emphasized to us in almost daily emails,” he said.
The White House did not respond to Columbia’s memo on Friday. The Trump administration said its demands, laid out in a letter to Armstrong eight days ago, were a precondition before Columbia could enter “formal negotiations” with the government to have federal funding.
ARREST POWERS
Columbia’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has targeted as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
Private companies, law firms and other organizations have also faced threatened cuts in government funding and business unless they agree to adhere more closely to Trump’s priorities. Powerful Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss came under heavy criticism on Friday over a deal it struck with the White House to escape an executive order imperiling its business.
Columbia has come under particular scrutiny for the anti-Israel student protest movement that roiled its campus last year, when its lawns filled with tent encampments and noisy rallies against the US government’s support of the Jewish state.
To some of the Trump administration’s demands, such as having “time, place and manner” rules around protests, the school suggested they had already been met.
Columbia said it had already sought to hire peace officers with arrest powers before the Trump administration’s demand last week, saying 36 new officers had nearly completed the lengthy training and certification process under New York law.
The university said no one was allowed to wear face masks on campus if they were doing so intending to break rules or laws. The ban does not apply to face masks worn for medical or religious purposes, and the university did not say it was adopting the Trump administration’s demand that Columbia ID be worn visibly on clothing.
The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said.
Canceled projects included the development of an AI-based tool that helps nurses detect the deterioration of a patient’s health in hospital and research on uterine fibroids, non-cancerous tumors that can cause pain and affect women’s fertility.
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