Ahmed Asmar
February 20, 2025•Update: February 21, 2025
ANKARA
Palestinian resistance group Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli captives on Thursday under a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
The bodies of Shiri Bibas, and her two children; Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz were handed over to Red Cross representatives in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the army and the Shin Bet domestic security service received caskets containing the four bodies from the Red Cross.
It said the bodies will be identified at the Health Ministry's Abu Kabir National Center of Forensic Medicine, after which an official notification will be given to their families.
Ahead of the handover, Hamas placed four black caskets on a stage in Khan Younis, behind which a banner was displayed depicting Netanyahu as Dracula, the infamous vampire, positioned above images of the Bibas family and Lifshitz.
Hamas has accused the Israeli government of killing the four hostages in an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Chen Kugel, the director of Israel's Forensic Medicine Institute, announced later that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas belonged to Lifshitz.
"One of the bodies examined today by the Forensic Medicine Institute belongs to detainee Oded Lifshitz," said Kugel, confirming that his name was among the four returned by Hamas.
Speaking at a press conference broadcast by Israel's public broadcaster KAN, he noted that forensic examinations suggest Lifshitz was killed more than a year ago.
The handover was part of the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap deal which took effect on Jan. 19, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed at least 48,300 people, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
