Israel calls Hamas 'monsters' for public handover of hostage remains

Israel denounced Hamas as "monsters" on Thursday after the Palestinian militant group staged a handover ceremony in the ruins of a Gaza ceremony for the bodies of four hostages, who they said included Shiri Bibas and her two young sons.

The United Nations also slammed what it called the "abhorrent and cruel" staging of the event, which it said "flies in the face of international law", calling for future handovers to be done in private.

This was the first handover of dead hostages under a fragile ceasefire that so far had only seen living captives exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The ceremony to return the bodies of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, alongside a fourth hostage, Oded Lifshitz, took place in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.

Ahead of the handover, Hamas and members of other armed Palestinian groups displayed four black coffins on a stage.

Each casket bore a small photo of the deceased, while mock-up missiles nearby carried the message: "They were killed by USA bombs," a reference to Israel's top military supplier.

Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed the Bibas family early in the war, but Israel has never confirmed the claim.

"We are all enraged at the monsters of Hamas," Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a video message, vowing again to destroy the group.

Hamas said in a statement that it and its armed wing "did everything in their power to protect the prisoners (hostages) and preserve their lives, but the barbaric and continuous bombing by the occupation prevented them from being able to save all".

The youngest hostage

Flag-waving Israelis lined the route along which a convoy carrying the bodies travelled from southern Israel to Tel Aviv.

Among those waiting at "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv was museum manager Tania Coen Uzzielli, 59.

"This is one of the hardest days, I think, since October 7," she said, adding that "maybe we didn't do enough to prevent this tragedy".

Later, thousands in the square held a minute's silence to commemorate the four deceased hostages.

The National Institute of Forensic Medicine, where the bodies were taken, confirmed that Lifshitz – 83 at the time of his capture and a veteran journalist and peace activist – was among the bodies handed over.

It did not confirm the identities of the other three, however, saying on Thursday evening that it "continues the identification process".

During their October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas filmed and later broadcast footage showing the Bibas family's abduction from their home near the Gaza border.

Ariel was then aged four, while Kfir was the youngest hostage at just nine months old.

Yarden Bibas, the boys' father and Shiri's husband, was abducted separately and released in a previous hostage-prisoner swap on February 1.

The bodies' repatriation is part of the six-week initial phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19.

Under the first phase, militants have so far freed 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.

Of the remaining 14 Gaza hostages eligible for release under phase one, Israel says eight are dead.

Under strain

Palestinian prisoners are also set to be freed in Saturday's swap, but were not part of Thursday's handover.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said talks will begin this week on the truce's second phase, aiming to lay out a more permanent end to the war.

A Hamas spokesman on Thursday accused Netanyahu of "procrastinating regarding the second phase", saying the group was "ready to engage".

Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Wednesday that Hamas was ready to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during phase two.

Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7 attack. Prior to Thursday's handover, there were 70 hostages still in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)