The Bibas family, for its part, accused Mr. Netanyahu of having “abandoned” their relatives on the day of the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023, and during their captivity. “We have not received an apology from you,” said Children’s aunt, adding that the family was still waiting to know the “fate” of their mother, Shiri Bibas.

Israeli authorities have announced that a body delivered by Hamas on Thursday with those of children was not that of Shiri Bibas, but a woman in Gaza, causing a shock wave in Israel. The Palestinian Islamist movement has recognized “a possible error”.

Despite these developments, Hamas confirmed that it would release as expected on Saturday six Israeli hostages, as part of the truce agreement in Gaza, which entered into force on January 19 after 15 months of devastating war.

According to the Palestinian prisoner club, 602 Palestinian detainees must in exchange out of the Israeli prisons, which Israel has not confirmed.

The bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged four and eight and a half months respectively during their kidnapping on October 7, were returned with that of Oded Liffhitz, an octogenarian hostage.

“Based on the diagnostic indicators, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists,” said the Israeli army, who then said that their murderers had acted “.

The hostage families forum said it was “shaken” on Friday by this “barbaric act”.

“Monsters”

Netanyahu denounced in a statement “horrible murders” committed by “monsters”. “I undertake not to release my efforts as long as these savages who have executed our hostages are not brought to justice. »

“With unimaginable cynicism, they did not make Shiri with her grandchildren (…) and placed the body of a woman from Gaza in the coffin,” he said earlier.

Netanyahu

He promised to act “with determination to bring Shiri back to home as well as all our hostages, the living and the dead” and so that Hamas “pays the price of this cruel and perverse violation of the agreement”.

Hamas, which said in November that Shiri Bibas and his children had been killed in an Israeli strike, admitted to a statement “the possibility of an error or a mixture of bodies”.

He underlined his “total commitment” vis-à-vis the cease-fire agreement, ensuring that he had “no interest in composing or retaining from the bodies” of hostages.

Kfir Bibas was the youngest of the 251 hostages kidnapped on October 7, 67 of which are still captive in Gaza, including 35 dead, according to the army. His father kidnapped that day was released on February 1.

Delayed Negotiations

The remains were returned as part of the first phase of the truce agreement concluded via the mediators-Egypt, Qatar, United States.

Thursday, Netanyahu had denounced the staging organized by Hamas for the occasion, in Khan Younès in the south of the Gaza Strip, reaffirming his determination to “eliminate” the movement, in power in Palestinian territory since 2007.

Armed and hooded fighters exhibited on a podium four black coffins each carrying the photo of one of the hostages. Above, a poster showed Mr. Netanyahu with a face mucus of blood, decked out in vampire teeth.

It was the first time that Hamas has given hostage bodies since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by its attack on October 7. Several dead hostages were found by the Israeli army during its operations in the Palestinian territory.

During the first phase of the agreement, which should be completed on March 1, 22 Israeli hostages were given to Israel, against the release of more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners during five successive exchanges.

According to Hamas, the six hostages having to be released on Saturday are the last living captives to return to Israel by March 1. A total of 33 hostages, including eight dead, must be handed over by Hamas in exchange for 1900 Palestinians held by Israel during the first phase of the agreement.

On Wednesday, Hamas said it was ready to release “in one time,” and no longer in successive stages, all the hostages still retained in Gaza during the second phase.

Retards

But the indirect negotiations on this second stage, supposed to end the war definitively, were delayed, the two parties accusing each other of violations of the truce.

The third and last phase must in principle relate to the reconstruction of Gaza.