New body returned by Hamas identified as Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas
Israeli teams examined the body and confirmed its identity after an earlier handover of misidentified hostage remains prompted outrage
Israel’s Bibas family announced on Saturday that remains returned to Israel the day before were identified to be of hostage Shiri Bibas, taken captive by Hamas militants in October 2023.
The Israeli kibbutz community of Nir Oz had earlier on Saturday announced Bibas’ death, after the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had transferred more human remains to Israeli authorities without saying whose they were.
“After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister, and all her family to rest,” the Bibas family said in a statement.
“Despite our fears for their fate, we kept hoping we would get to hug them again, and now we are broken and grieving.
“For 16 months, we sought certainty, and now that we have it, there is no comfort in it, but we hope for the beginning of a closure,” the family said in a statement on Instagram.
The Palestinian militant 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.