The Hamas terrorist organization on Thursday released the remains of four Israeli hostages it murdered following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The bodies handed over in a ghoulish Gaza ceremony were said to be of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was snatched.
Kfir, who was nine months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive.
Hamas alleged all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes but offered no evidence to support the claim.
As Hamas paraded the bodies of dead Israeli hostages, including two children, one a baby, Gazans in the crowd cheered, celebrated, whistled, and smiled. Not a single one of them showed any remorse. I’ve never witnessed so much evil in my life.pic.twitter.com/DdVS5Lku1r
— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) February 20, 2025
“Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement.
“On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.”
AP reports the terrorists displayed four black coffins on a stage in the Gaza Strip surrounded by banners, including a large one depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire.
Bodies of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz are handed over to the Red Cross under a Gaza prisoner-hostage swap agreement in Khan Yunis, Gaza on February 20, 2025. Ahead of the handover, Hamas ghoulishly placed four black caskets on a stage behind which a banner was displayed depicting Netanyahu as Dracula, the infamous vampire, positioned above images of the deceased. (Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty)
Thousands of people, including large numbers of masked and armed militants, looked on while clapping and sheering as the coffins were loaded onto Red Cross vehicles before being driven to Israeli forces.
Hamas-led terrorists abducted 251 hostages, including some 30 children, in the Oct. 7 attack, in which they also murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The terror group is set to free six living hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and says it will release four more bodies next week, completing the ceasefire’s first phase.
That will leave the militants with some 60 hostages, all men, around half of whom are believed to be dead.
