A body that Hamas turned over to the Red Cross on Friday has been confirmed as that of Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother whose capture with her two young sons during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack became a symbol of the country’s anguish.
Early Saturday, a group representing hostages and their families, Hostage Families Forum, announced that Israeli forensic experts had positively identified the woman as Ms. Bibas. Nir Oz, the kibbutz where the Bibas family had lived, also shared the news.
Ms. Bibas’s remains were initially believed to have been repatriated to Israel on Thursday with those of her two children, as part of a negotiated exchange for Palestinian prisoners. With a DNA test, Israeli officials then determined the body was that of another person and not Ms. Bibas’s. The discovery stirred anguish in Israel and put pressure on Hamas to produce the correct remains.
Saturday’s announcements were the latest development in a series of crises that have made up the first phase of a cease-fire with Hamas. So far, 19 living Israeli hostages have been traded for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Despite recriminations from both sides, the cease-fire has held for a month. And Hamas’s rapid effort to find and return the body of Ms. Bibas was a sign that it did not want to bear responsibility for endangering the agreement ahead of the next transfer, planned for Saturday.
On Thursday, Hamas said it had handed over the remains of four hostages: Ms. Bibas, who at the time of her capture was 32; her two children, Ariel, then 4, and Kfir Bibas, then 9 months; and Oded Lifshitz, 83. The handoff was staged in front of crowds in Khan Younis, and each casket bore a photo of a hostage.
A forensic institute in Tel Aviv confirmed the identities of the remains of Ariel, Kfir and Mr. Lifshitz.
But early on Friday, Israel said that one of the bodies Hamas handed over was not that of Ms. Bibas. The Israeli military called the finding a “violation of the utmost severity” of the cease-fire. In a statement, Hamas acknowledged the possibility of a mistake or a “mixing up of corpses.” Another body, believed to be Ms. Bibas’s, was handed over to the Red Cross on Friday evening.
On Saturday morning, the forensic institute confirmed the identification of that body as Ms. Bibas’s, according to the Hostage Families Forum.
“Despite our fears about their fate, we continued to hope that we would get to embrace them, and now we are in pain and heartbroken,” the Bibas family wrote in a statement disseminated by the hostage forum. “For 16 months we sought certainty, and now that it’s here, it brings no comfort, though we hope it marks the beginning of closure.”
The family called for the immediate return of the remaining hostages still in captivity. “There is no more important goal. There can be no rehabilitation without them,” the family wrote.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
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