Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other remains after airstrike
Hamas says the remains of Shiri Bibas appear to have been mixed with other human remains in rubble after an Israeli airstrike, the Reuters news agency reports.
The statement comes after Israel said one of the four bodies returned by Hamas on Thursday is not that of the hostage Shiri Bibas.
The IDF said it was a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
Key events
Bethan McKernan
One of the four bodies returned by Hamas to Israel on Thursday is not that of the hostage Shiri Bibas, Israel’s military has said, calling it a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
The Israeli military confirmed that two of the bodies belonged to Bibas’s children, Ariel and Kfir, in the early hours of Friday. However, it added: “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”…
Hamas have reiterated their claim that the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two children were killed by an Israeli airstrike, following Israel’s claim that the body returned to them yesterday was that of an unidentified Gazan woman, not Bibas.
Hamas official Ismail al-Thawabteh claims that Shiri’s body “was turned into pieces after apparently being mixed with other bodies under the rubble.”
Hamas has claimed for the past year that Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were killed in an Israeli airstrike; Israel said overnight that they were murdered in captivity.
Israel claims that authorities at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute were able to definitively determine the body did not belong to Bibas, adding the body was dressed in clothing and was examined several times by the institute. Israel claim the body’s DNA was tested against that of Shiri and all other female hostages still held by Hamas, and none of them matched.
Netanyahu says Hamas will pay for not returning Shiri Bibas – video
Arab leaders have gathered in Saudi Arabia to discuss a plan for rebuilding Gaza amid the increasingly precarious ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
An alternative plan to President Donald Trump’s proposal for US control of the territory and the expulsion of Palestinians will be key on the agenda. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s half-baked ideas for the region are universally opposed by Arab nations, but discord remains over who should be in charge of Gaza and oversee its reconstruction.
“We’re at a very important historic juncture in the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict… where potentially the United States under Trump could create new facts on the ground that are irreversible,” Andreas Krieg, a King’s College London expert, told the AFP.
Trump triggered global outrage when he proposed the United States “take over the Gaza Strip” and relocate its more than two million residents to Egypt and Jordan.
Israel has rendered Gaza virtually unlivable after 15 months of bombarding the region, with the United Nations estimating that rebuilding would cost in excess of £40 billion.
Meanwhile, Hamas has called on the Arab league to support them to remain in control of Gaza ahead of the diplomatic summit in Riyadh, Al Jazeera reports.
The assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, Hossam Zaki, reportedly suggested that Hamas’ relinquishing of power in Gaza is in the interests of the Palestinian people.
In a statement on Friday, Hamas said:
We have shown the utmost flexibility in formulating political and administrative approaches to managing the Gaza Strip during the various dialogues, especially with our brothers in Egypt, including agreeing to form a national consensus government.”
We affirm that Hamas will continue to place the supreme interest of the Palestinian people at the heart of all its decisions related to the situation in the Gaza Strip after the war, within the framework of national consensus, and away from any interference by the occupation or the United States.
We also call on the Arab League to support this position and not to allow the passage of any projects that would threaten the Arab national security system.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel should not remain silent over the “severe violation” carried out by the Palestinian group.
Smotrich was reacting to the claim made by the Israeli military that one of the four bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday was an unidentified woman and not Shiri Bibas as they claimed.
“The severe violation by Hamas and the ongoing abuse cannot be faced with silence. And neither can the certain knowledge that they brutally murdered the young Ariel and Kfir in captivity,” he added, referring to Bibas’s two children whose bodies were returned yesterday.
Smotrich said: “The only solution is the destruction of Hamas, and it must not be delayed.”
Hamas says Shiri Bibas remains appear to have been mixed with other remains after airstrike
Hamas says the remains of Shiri Bibas appear to have been mixed with other human remains in rubble after an Israeli airstrike, the Reuters news agency reports.
The statement comes after Israel said one of the four bodies returned by Hamas on Thursday is not that of the hostage Shiri Bibas.
The IDF said it was a “violation of utmost severity” of a ceasefire deal that was already precarious.
Editorial
The pain and damage wreaked in the last 16 months will reverberate through families, communities and the Middle East for decades to come. On Thursday, the bodies of two young children and their mother, and that of an 83-year-old peace activist, were returned to Israel by Hamas. They were kidnapped in the 7 October 2023 raid in which the militants killed around 1,200 Israelis and others. Around 48,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war in response.
It was always feared that the ceasefire deal, which has brought desperately needed respite for Palestinians in Gaza and the return of Israeli and foreign hostages, would be fleeting. The six-week opening stage is due to expire on 1 March. The talks on the more complicated second stage have yet to begin, more than a fortnight after they were due…
Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, expressed outrage this morning at Hamas’s “horrific violation” after the Israeli military said the jihadist group handed over the body of an unidentified Gazan woman while claiming it was Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas.
“The bodies of Ariel and Kfir, so pure and innocent, were identified, while their beloved mother, Shiri, remains in captivity,” says Herzog in a statement. “This is a shocking and horrific violation of the ceasefire agreement, another cruel act by the terrorists of Hamas, who continue to show utter disregard for humanity.”
Herzog says Israel is “anxiously await[ing] the expected release of six more hostages this weekend,” and says the country must “do everything in our power to bring every one of our kidnapped sisters and brothers home. All of them. Until the very last one.”
Madawi al-Rasheed
Here’s an opinion piece on today’s diplomatic summit in Riyadh, which will discuss plans for Gaza’s future, penned by Madawi al-Rasheed, a fellow of the British Academy and a visiting professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics.
Extract: Saudi Arabia has suddenly experienced a diplomatic awakening after lukewarm engagement with the conflict in Gaza. Today, leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will gather in Riyadh to discuss Donald Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza. (Keen to be viewed as a global deal maker, Saudi Arabia will also be hosting negotiations over Ukraine this week.)
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was alarmed by Trump’s outrageous “Riviera plan” to reconstruct Gaza following eviction of its people to neighbouring countries. Alongside Arab leaders, he hopes to propose an alternative plan with the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital at its core. The crown prince has insisted that there will be no normalisation of Israel without a Palestinian state…
The Wafa news agency reports that Israeli forces continued their assault on Tulkarm, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and its refugee camp overnight, inflicting extensive destruction to homes and civilian properties.
Entire neighbourhoods are reportedly in ruins, with small businesses and residential properties bearing the brunt of the damage, including the Nour Shams Association for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, which provides vital humanitarian and social programs for people with disabilities in the camp and the city.
Entire homes were also bulldozed in an apparent effort to construct a road in the refugee camp.
In the eastern district of Tulkarm city, Israeli forces vandalised and occupied residential buildings, converting them into military outposts.
William Christou
Thirty metres under the city of Kobani, north-east Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) kept a watchful eye on the Turkish border. A plasma screen TV displayed 16 surveillance feeds to officers in a room in one of the Kurdish-led militia’s tunnels, where Kalashnikovs and SDF flags adorned the walls.
The soldiers dare not emerge from the tunnels, fearful of being picked off by the Turkish drones buzzing overhead. They move between facilities in the subterranean network on foot, emerging from entrances hidden in nondescript buildings.
“Most of our forces are currently concentrated in the tunnels. When Turkey started threatening us, we started going underground,” Zinarin Kobane, the commander of the SDF’s Euphrates region, said during a rare tour of the SDF’s tunnel network…
