'Pure Evil': Hamas Hands Over Remains of Dead Israeli Mother, Toddler & Infant

Thursday was a somber and tragic day for Israel as the bodies of four slain Israeli hostages were returned by Hamas, 503 days after they were initially kidnapped in the Oct.7, 2023 raids on southern Israel and massacres.

"Hamas had said earlier in the week that it was handing over the bodies of Shiri Silberman Bibas, her two young sons Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 at the time of his abduction," Times of Israel writes.

Ariel and Kfir Bibas were the two youngest hostages taken to Gaza, and were just 4-years old and 9-months old at the time.

Israeli officials were outraged that as usual, the handover ceremony in Khan Younis was done on a stage covered with propaganda posters. The bodies were transferred to the Red Cross, who then transported the coffins to Israel. All four had been initially taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel.

It's unclear how precisely the captives died, also in terms of when or where in captivity, but what's clear is the young had been taken alive:

The mother and children were taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Video of the abduction, with a terrified Shiri Bibas seen swaddling her two redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men, ricocheted around the world in the hours after the attack.

Yarden Bibas, the father, was abducted and held separately and released on Feb. 1, as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that paused the 15-month-long war in Gaza. During the first phase, a total of 33 hostages are to be freed in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Eight of those 33 were said by Israel to be dead.

Below: the footage viewed around the world showing the family's kidnapping...

Kfir was by far the youngest of about 30 total children taken hostage, and the baby's father, Yarden Bibas, had been  kidnapped but held separately, and released on Feb. 1 during the first phase of the current ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Israel's Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli blasted the whole handover ordeal of small coffins, saying "a society that cultivates a culture of murder and death has no right to exist."

Grim images of the handover of the bodies:

"One of the West’s greatest failures is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of pure evil. We have raised generations to believe that monsters exist only in fairy tales, that there is no true right or wrong, and that all cultures are equal," the Likud minister wrote on X.

"And then comes this accursed day, a day of horror and shame, when an elderly man, a mother, and her two children: Oded Lipschitz, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas — who were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, paraded like trophies before a cheering, flag-waving crowd in Gaza. Pure evil. And against such evil, there can be no excuses, rationalizations, or compromises," he wrote in English.

Hamas has claimed it was actually Israeli bombs and attacks on Gaza which in the end killed the slain hostages, which they emphasized in propaganda posters featuring a bloody, monstrous Netanyahu...

Meanwhile, international reports as well as the Vatican have said that the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza has exceeded 44,000 - including 13,000 children - figures largely based on Gaza sources. American-supplied weapons were also heavily relied upon during the lengthy ground and air operation which has decimated the strip.