Israel Alleges Ceasefire 'Violation of Utmost Severity'

Hamas said it returned the bodies of the two youngest Israeli hostages, as well as their mother and an unrelated adult, on Thursday. But now Israel's military says forensic testing of the remains shows that the body of Shiri Bibas, the mother of young Ariel and Kfir Bibas, was not among those returned. The military called the development a "violation of the utmost severity" of Israel's ceasefire agreement with Hamas, the New York Times reports. Forensic testing was reportedly only able to identify the bodies of the two boys, who were 4 years old and 9 months old when they were taken, Fox News reports.

"During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body," said the Israel Defense Forces in its statement. The IDF also said that "according to the assessment of professional officials, based on the intelligence available to us and forensic findings from the identification process, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered by terrorists in captivity in November 2023." Hamas has long claimed the boys were killed in an Israeli airstrike. About 70 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas' custody, almost all of them men, and around half of them are believed to be dead. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)