Buenos Aires Herald 
Hamas delivered Argentine-Israeli Shiri Bibas’ remains to Israel, the Israeli government and her family confirmed on Saturday, following the mistaken delivery of an unidentified body earlier this week.
“Last night, our personal journey as a family to bring Yarden, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir home came to an end. It concluded in the most terrible and painful way,” said Sunday Ofri Bibas Levy, sister of Yarden — Shiri’s husband and father of the two boys — in a post on the family’s Instagram account called Bring Bibas Home.
“We are now beginning a new fight to recover, rehabilitate and recuperate, which will be long and difficult,” she added.
On Thursday, Hamas handed over the bodies of four people to Israel. Two were identified as Shiri’s children, Ariel (4) and Kfir Bibas (9 months), kidnapped by the organization on October 7, 2023, alongside their mother. Yarden Bibas was also kidnapped that day but released on February 1.
However, the remains Hamas had initially claimed were Shiri’s turned out to be from another “anonymous, unidentified” woman, the IDF said in a communiqué on Thursday. On Friday, Hamas handed over another body, which the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv confirmed to be Shiri’s on Saturday.
“For 16 months, we sought certainty, and now that we have it, there is no comfort in it, but we hope for the beginning of a closure,” said a statement by the family published on Saturday, in which they also demanded the immediate return of all the remaining hostages.
Hamas claimed that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023, and said that they initially handed over the body of another victim of that airstrike instead of Shiri’s due to “an error or mix-up of bodies”, according to Al Jazeera.
Israel rejects that version. On Friday, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a video that the captors murdered the two boys and then tried to “cover up” the crime, although he didn’t provide any further details or evidence to support this claim.
The Bibas family has also called for people to “desist adding details to the fact that Shiri and the children were murdered by their captors” because it causes them “intense suffering at this stage.” They announced that the funeral will be private, but the general public is welcome to join a procession in their honor on Wednesday, February 26. Details will be published on their Instagram account.
You may also be interested in: Argentine-Israeli Iair Horn released by Hamas
