JERUSALEM: Israel’s Bibas family accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today of failing to protect their loved ones during Hamas’s 2023 attack and of failing to bring them home.
The family’s comments were their first since Israel announced that a body received from Hamas yesterday was not that of Shiri Bibas as claimed by the Palestinian resistance group.
It confirmed that three other bodies handed over were those of veteran peace activist Oded Lifshitz and Shiri’s two young sons Kfir and Ariel.
Shiri’s sister-in-law, Ofri Bibas, charged that Israeli authorities, particularly the prime minister, had failed to protect the hostages and had abandoned them.
“It was Israel’s responsibility and obligation to bring them back alive,” she said in a statement released on behalf the family through an Israeli campaign group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on Oct 7, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we did not receive an apology from you in this painful moment,” she said.
Hamas had said the remains returned yesterday included those of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, whose father Yarden the Palestinian group released in a hostage-prisoner swap earlier this month.
While Israel confirmed the identities of the two boys, it said the body claimed to be that of Shiri Bibas was not hers.
“My sweet nephews were taken alive from their home and murdered by a cruel terrorist organisation while in captivity. They didn’t deserve such a fate,” Ofri Bibas said.
“Our painful journey, which has already lasted 16 months, is not over. Oct 7 continues. We are still waiting for Shiri and fear for her fate.
“For Ariel and Kfir’s sake, and for Yarden’s sake, we are not seeking revenge right now. We are asking for Shiri.
“Their cruelty only emphasises the urgent need to bring Shiri back to us, save the lives of the living hostages and return all the fallen for burial.”
Ofri Bibas appealed to US President Donald Trump to “help Israel and our family complete this important mission”.
Netanyahu has accused Hamas of violating the Gaza ceasefire deal by failing to return Shiri Bibas and instead placing “the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin”.
Hamas has long maintained that an Israeli air strike killed the boys and their mother early in the war, but today Israeli officials charged that the boys were “murdered in captivity”.
Since their abduction on Oct 7, 2023, Shiri Bibas and her two sons, Ariel who was then aged four, and Kfir, then only nine months, had become symbols of Israel’s hostage ordeal.
