Middle East crisis: Israel claims Hamas killed Bibas children with their ‘bare hands’ – as it happened
Israel claims Hamas murdered babies Ariel and Kfir Bibas with their ‘bare hands’
The IDF says Hamas terrorists murdered children Ariel and Kfir Bibas “with their bare hands” weeks after their kidnapping on 7 October 2023.
“We can confirm that baby Kfir Bibas, just 10 months old, and his older brother Ariel, aged four, were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza no later than November 2023. These two innocent children were taken hostage alive, along with their mother, Shiri, from their home on 7 October 2023,” IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
Hamas insist that the Bibas boys and their mother, Shiri, were killed by an Israeli airstrike. However, Hadari says those claims are lies, that Ariel and Kfir Bibas were “murdered in cold blood”.
Hagari adds:
The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys – they killed them with their bare hands. Afterwards, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities. This assessment is based on forensic findings and intelligence that supports these conclusions. We have shared this intelligence and the forensic findings with our partners around the world so they can verify it.
The entire world must know exactly how the Hamas terrorist organization operates. Ariel and Kfir were murdered, and then yesterday, their bodies were returned in a cynical and cruel ceremony in Gaza. Shiri Bibas, who was meant to be returned with her children to Israel as part of the agreement, was not returned by Hamas. Hamas lied and violated the agreement.
The body that Hamas falsely claimed was Shiri’s was not hers, nor was it any other hostage. Instead, Hamas sent over the body of an unidentified woman. This is yet more evidence of Hamas’s barbaric cruelty.”
Hagari says Israel demands that Shiri Bibas be returned to Israel swiftly.
It is worth noting that Israel’s claims have yet to be verified by independent sources.
Key events
Summary
We’re pausing our live coverage of the Middle East crisis now – it’s just after 8pm in Tel Aviv and Gaza City. Here’s a summary of what’s been happening today:
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge for what he described as a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement after authorities determined that a body released by Hamas was not an Israeli mother of two small boys, as the militant group had promised. Hamas turned over four bodies yesterday as part of the ceasefire deal. They were supposed to have been those of Shiri Bibas, her sons, Kfir and Ariel, and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted during the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas that ignited the war. Israeli authorities said they had positively identified the remains of the two boys and of Lifshitz. However, the fourth body was determined to be that of an unidentified woman from Gaza.
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Despite the tense exchanges, there were indications that the ceasefire deal’s next step — the release of six living Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — would proceed as planned. Israel will free 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees from jails as part of the swap.
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The Bibas family accused Netanyahu of failing to protect their loved ones during Hamas’s 2023 attack and of failing to bring them home. “There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on October 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,” Ofri Bibas, the sister-in-law of Shiri Bibas, said in a statement.
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Netanyahu said he has ordered the Israeli military to carry out an intensive operation against what he called “centres of terrorism” in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister also said on social media that he had ordered Shin Bet and police to increase “preventative” measures against attacks on Israeli cities. It followed a series of explosions on three parked buses in Bat Yam, a city outside Tel Aviv, on Thursday night. Authorities said they were a suspected terrorist attack. No injuries were reported.
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Over half a million children have been left without education across Gaza and the West Bank, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The NGO warned that vital aid for children in the region is being scuppered by increasing violence.
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Saudi Arabia’s crown prince held a meeting of leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Egypt and Jordan. The meeting hosted by Mohammed bin Salman had been described as “an informal brotherly gathering” by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It came ahead of an Arab League summit likely to discuss the Gaza Strip after US President Donald Trump proposed America “take over” the territory and permanently resettle its Palestinian residents, a plan that Arab countries have universally rejected.
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The leader of Sinn Fein will boycott St. Patrick’s day events in US over Gaza. Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein and First Minister Michelle O’Neill, said they would not attend the celebrations after Trump’s call to exile Palestinians from the enclave.
Israel-Hamas swap to go ahead despite claim child hostages were killed with ‘bare hands’
Bethan McKernan
Israelis and Palestinians are bracing for another tense hostage, prisoner and detainee exchange on Saturday amid uproar in Israel over allegations that two child hostages were “brutally murdered” by Hamas, and the group’s failure to deliver the body of their mother, instead returning the corpse of an unidentified woman.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday afternoon that autopsy results and military intelligence concluded that members of Hamas “used their bare hands” to kill Ariel Bibas, four, and his 10-month-old brother, Kfir, when they were seized in October 2023.
“Their father, [the recently released hostage] Yarden Bibas, looked me in the eyes and asked that the whole world know and be shocked by the way they murdered his children,” the military army spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said in a video address.
In Israel and around the world, the fate of the Bibas family has come to embody the trauma of the Hamas attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
On Friday, Hamas released the names of the six living hostages the militants plan to release over the weekend under the terms of the ceasefire. The Palestinian prisoners media office said that more than 600 Palestinian prisoners were also to be freed.
The announcements are a sign that the fragile deal remains on track despite the tensions caused by the furore surrounding the Bibas’s fate.
Michelle O’Neill has defended her decision not to travel to Washington DC after criticism from opposition parties on both sides of the Irish border.
The Northern Ireland first minister said she could not be part of a St Patrick’s Day reception in the White House because of Donald Trump’s “very dangerous, very threatening rhetoric” on Gaza.
O’Neill and party leader Mary Lou McDonald announced earlier that Sinn Féin would not travel to the US as part of “a principled stance against the threat of mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza”.
O’Neill told the PA news agency:
I am a first minister for everybody, and I’ve borne that out every day in my role in the last year since I took up that post.
But there are times when political leaders are tasked to make a decision, and I had to make a decision, and I believe that the right decision at this time is to come down the side of humanity.
I couldn’t in good conscious travel to the United States, be part of a Shamrock reception in the White House, at a time where the new US administration is actually actively threatening to remove Palestinian people from their land, to seize their land, and they’ve very much moved away from a two-state solution.
I couldn’t in all conscience make that trip at this time. I just think that there are times whenever we’ll all reflect, and certainly whenever my grandchildren ask me, what did I do whenever the Palestinian people were suffering, I could say that I stood in the sight of humanity.
Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered an increase in troop numbers and authorised new operations in the occupied West Bank in response to the explosions on empty Israeli buses there yesterday, AP reports
On a visit to the Tulkarem refugee camp, in the West Bank, the Israeli PM said troops were entering militant strongholds, “clearing entire streets” and the homes of alleged militants
Israel’s large-scale military operation in the West Bank, which started immediately after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began in Gaza, has wreaked widespread damage, killing more than 50 Palestinians and forcing thousands to flee their homes
Israel says its increased military operations are aimed at combating rising Palestinian militant attacks against Israelis. Many Palestinians say the operations only deepen resentment for Israel and prolong the cycle of bloodshed.
Here’s some more context on the meeting between Arab and Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia.
In a piece published this morning, Madawi al-Rasheed, a fellow of the British Academy and a visiting professor at LSE’s Middle East Centre, explains that Riyad’s “determination to normalise relations with Israel springs out of domestic interest.”
She writes: “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was alarmed by Trump’s outrageous ‘Riviera plan’ to reconstruct Gaza following eviction of its people to neighbouring countries. Alongside Arab leaders, he hopes to propose an alternative plan with the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital at its core. The crown prince has insisted that there will be no normalisation of Israel without a Palestinian state.
“In the short term, he may succeed in preventing the eviction of Palestinians from Gaza and their proposed resettlement in Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia. The summit promises to raise enough funds for reconstruction while leaving Palestinians in temporary shelters on their own land.
“The urgent and more challenging item of the summit’s agenda will be finding an alternative power to replace Hamas as the government of Gaza. Prince Mohammed is a sworn enemy of several Islamist movements, but his disdain for Hamas is more profound. He considers it responsible for derailing his plan to complete normalisation with Israel after 7 October 2023.
“The crown prince’s determination to normalise relations with Israel springs out of domestic interest. Saudi Arabia would like to see the transfer of Israeli technology, military equipment, intelligence and develop closer trade relations. More importantly, he hopes such a move would lead to closer security ties with the United States.”
Read the piece in full:
An 18-year-old ethnic Chechen has been arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, German newspaper Bild reports.
German police confirmed the Russian national was detained on Thursday and placed in investigative custody on Friday, and that he was under investigation for planning an attack, according to Reuters.
They declined to comment further on the background and motive.
The Israeli Embassy could not be reached for comment outside of business hours, while state prosecutors and the Russian embassy did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
Bild said the investigation had been the result of a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency. It said the suspect had been trying to leave the country via Berlin’s BER airport when he was detained.
Israel demand return of Shiri Bibas’s body as Hamas claims it is mixed with other remains – video
Reuters has some further details about the meeting that took place between Arab and Gulf states in Saudi Arabia.
It was attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah and Crown Prince Hussein; Qatar’s Emir sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani; UAE president sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his national security adviser; Kuwait’s Emir sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, and Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa.
Riyadh made no official mention of the talks, but sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters that they tackled a mainly Egyptian proposal that could include up to $20bn in funding over three years from wealthy Gulf and Arab states.
Last week, the Guardian reported that a proposal being drawn up by Cairo would formally exclude Hamas from governance of Gaza and control of its reconstruction.
Major US allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which is one of few Arab states to have normalised ties with Israel, have ruled out Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza.
They have emphasised that any peace deal should envisage a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel.
Irish premier Micheál Martin has accused Sinn Féin of “engaging in politics” over its decision not to travel to Washington DC in protest of Donald Trump’s position on Gaza, PA reports.
Martin, who intends and expects to Trump at the White House for an event around St Patrick’s Day, said he had a “responsibility to the country” to attend.
He said there was a need to continue engagement with the US administration to protect jobs in Ireland as well as trade between the two countries:
“It is very important because, first of all, the economic relationship between Europe and US and between Ireland and the US is an extremely important one, very robust one.”
The taoiseach said it was also important to keep engagement with the US to offer Ireland’s perspective on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
We need a consolidation of the ceasefire, we need a massive surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and we need to create a political pathway to a two-state solution.
Earlier, Sinn Féin’s leaders announced they were boycotting the visit in “a principled stance against the threat of mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza”.
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has left Saudi Arabia after joining an informal meeting on the Israel-Palestinian conflict with Gulf Arab states and Jordan, the presidency says in a statement.
The participating countries were expected to discuss alternatives to Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza and resettle most of them in Jordan and Egypt.
Earlier this month, Trump suggested Israel would turn Gaza over to the US for redevelopment into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Last week, the Guardian reported that Egypt was drawing up a plan under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance of Gaza and control of its reconstruction.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum says it is “shaken” by the army’s revelation that Palestinian terrorists murdered the two Bibas boys with their “bare hands”.
“We are shaken to the core by the horrifying findings confirming the cruel and brutal murder of Ariel and Kfir Bibas – just innocent infants – at the hands of Hamas,” the group says in a statement, describing their deaths as “barbaric”.
Mohamad Bazzi
As global attention remains focused on the hostage-prisoner swaps between Hamas and Israel, another ceasefire in the region hangs in the balance.
The 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim militia which has been the most dominant political faction in Lebanon for the past two decades, was paused by a US-brokered ceasefire in late November. The agreement also paved the way to end years of political deadlock in Beirut. Lebanon has formed a new government, and finally has leaders chosen for their promises to carry out reforms, rather than their sectarian affiliations – but the future of the ceasefire deal has left them facing an immediate crisis.
The original 60-day ceasefire was intended to give the two sides time to negotiate a longer truce. Under the deal, Israeli was supposed to fully withdraw its troops from parts of southern Lebanon it had invaded in October, while Hezbollah agreed to move its fighters and weapons north of the Litani river, about 16 miles (25 km) from the Israel-Lebanon border. The Israeli and Hezbollah withdrawals would allow the Lebanese army to move into southern Lebanon…
