After more than 500 days of wait, the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons were brought to Israel on Friday and Saturday, with officials saying the trio was "brutally murdered" in Gaza in November 2023.
The woman Shiri Bibas, her sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, nine months, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023.
The Bibas Family just issued this statement: "Tonight, our Shiri has returned home. 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… pic.twitter.com/q6Y3EHBjZp
— Noa Tishby (@noatishby) February 22, 2025
Her husband, Yarden Bibas, was returned alive from Hamas captivity earlier this month. He was abducted by Hamas when he left the safe room of their home in order to lure the attackers away from his wife and children.
How Shiri Bibas and her two young sons were brutally murdered
IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the two boys were not shot but instead they killed the children with their "bare hands" in November 2023. "They committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities," he said.
ALSO READ: Who is Yarden Bibas? Israeli hostage's wife Shiri and sons Ariel and Kfir dead
Hamas had earlier claimed that the woman and her children were killed in IDF airstrikes.
The militants earlier returned the body of four people, of which one was supposed to be Shiri Bibas. However, instead of returning her remains, Hamas handed over the body of a Palestinian woman. The other three bodies were positively identified as her sons Ariel and Kfir besides another Kibbutz Nir Oz resident Oded Lifshitz, 83. They were all killed more than a year ago.
Hamas later admitted to a mix-up of bodies during an airstrike. But Israel said Bibas and her children were murdered by their captors in "cold blood". Israel has confirmed that a group called the Mujahideen Brigades was holding the family.
Following this, Hamas handed over Bibas's body to the Red Cross and Israel has positively identified her. Meanwhile, Hamas has urged Israel to return the body of the Palestinian woman.
After the October 7 attack, footage of showed a horrified Bibas carrying her two sons in a blanket as the militants transport them to Gaza.
