The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday that one of the four hostage corpses handed over by Hamas as part of the ceasefire deal was not, in fact, the right person.
Hamas was to have delivered the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, 84; along with mother Shiri Bibas, 33, and her two children, Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 2.
The IDF said that it had positively identified Ariel and Kfir Bibas, but that Shiri Bibas was not among the corpses.
The IDF said in a statement:
Following the completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in collaboration with the Israel Police, IDF representatives informed the Bibas family that their loved ones, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, have been identified.
According to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023.
During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body.
This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.
Ariel Bibas was four years old at the time of his death, and Kfir Bibas was ten months old at the time of his death. They were abducted with their mother, Shiri Bibas, from their home in Nir Oz. Yarden Bibas, Ariel and Kfir’s father, went out to protect them and was abducted prior to the abduction of Shiri and the children. Yarden returned as part of the agreement for the return of the hostages on February 1, 2025.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to the Bibas family during this incredibly difficult time and remain committed to doing everything possible to ensure Shiri and all the hostages are brought home at the earliest opportunity.
It is not clear whether Shiri Bibas is still alive, or whether her body simply has been lost. It also remains unclear what Israel will do in response to Hamas’s violation, which will infuriate the Israeli public, which has been in mourning this week.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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