Hamas will pay 'full price' for hostage failure: Israel

JERUSALEM

Armed Palestinian militants stand next to the coffins on stage before handing over the bodies of four Israeli hostages to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza on Feb. 20, 2025.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he would ensure "Hamas pays the full price" for failing to hand over hostage Shiri Bibas after the militant group released a body Israel said was not hers.

"We will act with determination to bring Shiri home, along with all of our captives - both the living and the fallen - and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

A Hamas official told AFP on Friday that it was likely the body of captive Shiri Bibas had been "mistakenly mixed" with others who were killed and buried under the rubble in Gaza.

"It is likely that Mrs Bibas' body was mistakenly mixed with others found under the rubble," the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the group was "investigating" the issue. This came after Israel stated that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday was not that of Bibas, as the militants had claimed.

Hamas on Thursday handed over bodies it said were of four hostages, including three members of the Bibas family - Shiri Bibas and her two young sons - along with an elderly captive.

While the identities of the Bibas boys and the elderly hostage were confirmed by Israeli forensic experts, the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas, according to Israeli officials and as claimed by Hamas.

While Hamas has claimed that Shiri Bibas was killed early in the war, Israel has never confirmed her death.

Netanyahu said the fourth body was, in fact, that of a Gazan woman.

Adam Boehler, the U.S. envoy for hostages, condemned Hamas’ alleged actions, calling them “horrific” and a “clear violation” of the ceasefire in Gaza.

Speaking to CNN, Boehler escalated his rhetoric — echoing earlier threats by President Donald Trump against Hamas — saying: “If I were them, I’d release everybody or they are going to face total annihilation.

The two boys - Kfir and Ariel - had become symbols of the hostage crisis along with their mother.

During their attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas filmed and later broadcast footage showing the Bibas family's abduction from their home near the Gaza border.

Ariel was then aged four, while Kfir was the youngest hostage at just nine months old.

Their father, who was also seized during the attack, was released earlier this month.

The elderly hostage whose remains were returned on Thursday was identified as Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights.

Palestinian militants staged a ceremony to return the four bodies at a former cemetery in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.

The repatriation of the bodies was part of the six-week initial phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on Jan. 19 and has so far led to the release of 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s genocidal war killed at least 48,000 people, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.