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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered an “intensive” military operation in the occupied West Bank after three devices detonated on buses in the city of Bat Yam on Thursday, with injuries reported. The blasts occurred shortly before Israel announced that Hamas had returned an unknown body rather than that of deceased Gaza hostage Shiri Bibas. Follow our liveblog for all the latest.
- Israel says one of the four bodies Hamas returned on Thursday and purportedly belonged to Shiri Bibas has been identified and is not that of the mother of two.
- Israel has confirmed that her children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas – the youngest hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 – were among the four bodies returned. Hamas said they died in an Israeli attack, but Israel accuses the militant group of killing them.
Israel says Hamas killed Bibas boys
Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine has identified the remains of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, but said that testing shows they were not killed in an Israeli air strike as claimed by Hamas, but by their captors.
‘Crushing news’ that returned body does not belong to Shiri Bibas
FRANCE 24’s correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky reports from Jerusalem after Israel announced the “crushing” news that Hamas had returned an “anonymous body” instead of that of Shiri Bibas, whose remains were to be returned along with those of her two sons and an elderly hostage.
Shiri and her two sons Ariel and Kfir, who were four years old and nine months old respectively when they were taken captive, had become a symbol of the horrors Israel had endured during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, when the Bibas family was taken hostage.
Watch the full report in the video below:
Israel says body returned by Hamas is not Shiri Bibas
Israel early this morning said that one of the four bodies returned by Hamas on Thursday does not belong to Shiri Bibas.
Israel said it had identified her children, Kfir and Ariel – the youngest hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 – and accused the militant group of having killed them. Hamas claims they died in an Israeli air strike.
Israel to ‘intensify’ operations in occupied West Bank following bus blasts in central Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered an “intensive operation against centers of terrorism” in the occupied West Bank, his office said, after three buses exploded in central Israel without causing any reported injuries.
Three devices detonated on buses in the city of Bat Yam on Thursday evening and two others were being defused, according to police, with Israel’s defence minister accusing “Palestinian terrorist” groups of being behind the blasts.
Netanyahu’s office said on social media early Friday that he had completed a security assessment with top officials, ordering fresh counterterrorism operations as well as stepped up security in Israeli cities.
“The Prime Minister also ordered the Israel Police and the ISA (internal security agency) to increase preventative activity against additional attacks in Israeli cities,” he added.
Welcome to our liveblog, where we post the latest news on the Israel-Hamas war. To read all about yesterday’s key developments, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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