The al Qassam brigades’ hands over the body of captive Shiri Bibas to the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed on Friday evening that it had handed over new remains to the Israeli authorities, without the organization knowing whether they were the remains of the Israeli hostage, Shiri Bibas.

According to ICRC spokesman, “ICRC team received remains that were subsequently transferred to the Israeli authorities”.

For its part, the Israeli army announced on Friday evening that it was looking into reports that Hamas had handed over a second body to the Red Cross, believed to be that of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas, after the Palestinian movement handed over a first body on Thursday that turned out not to be that of the mother of the Bibas children.

“The information about Shiri Bibas is currently being looked into, as the Israeli Army representatives are in contact with the family,” army spokesman Nadav Shoshani wrote on X.

For its part, the Times of Israel newspaper quoted unnamed officials as saying that the Red Cross received a second body from Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“We’re living in difficult and uncertain times, and we hope that Hamas won’t disappoint us,” said Gilad Bodenheimer, an official in the Israeli Ministry of Health.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement and not handing over Bibas’ body among the bodies that were returned to Israel, Thursday, as part of the agreement.

Hamas indicated in a previous statement that there may have been an error or overlap in the bodies, which may have been the result of the Israeli targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians, and noted that it would inform the mediators of the results of the examination and investigation on its part, calling at the same time for the return of the body that the occupation claims belongs to a Palestinian woman who was killed during the Israeli bombing.

Hamas also considered, on Friday, that the allegations of the Israeli army spokesman and his accusation of the “resistance” of killing the Bibas family are “nothing but lies”.

Hamas said in a statement, “The allegations of the spokesman for the Zionist occupation army (Avichay Adraee) and his accusation of the resistance of killing the Bibas family are nothing but sheer lies, added to the lies he has been launching for fifteen months in the context of the war of extermination”.

Hamas added, “This is a desperate attempt to evade the responsibility of his criminal army for the killing of the family, in addition to his other crimes against prisoners in the Gaza Strip”.

The statement continued, “The fascist occupation and its media spokesmen practiced the most heinous methods of deception and false propaganda, repeatedly trying to divert the attention of world public opinion from their brutal crimes, the war of extermination, ethnic cleansing, and the horrific massacres they committed against defenseless civilians”.