Israel grieves as bodies said to be of hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, Oded Lifshitz return from Gaza
(JTA) — Some of the mourners clutched Israeli flags. Others held orange balloons.
On Thursday, hundreds of Israelis stood across the road from the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, the sky shifting between rain and sun, while they paid their final respects to four hostages who, after more than 500 days of captivity, had returned from Gaza in coffins and were due to arrive at the institute.
Two were said to be Ariel and Kfir Bibas, abducted in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack at ages 4 and 9 months — the youngest hostages held in Gaza. The body of their mother Shiri was said to return with them. The fourth body belonged to Oded Lifshitz, 84, one of the oldest captives.
The gathering was the most immediate manifestation of a grief that swept across Israel, centered on a mother and two small children who had become the faces of Israel’s hostage crisis and the global efforts to free the captives. Protesters across the world had prayed that their return would occasion relief; instead, Thursday was a day of mourning.
Lifshitz family confirms remains are of slain Israeli hostage
(JNS) — One of the bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday morning has been identified as belonging to hostage Oded Lifshitz, his family said following identification at the National Center of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv.
“We received with deep sorrow the official and bitter news confirming the identification of our beloved Oded’s body,” Lifshitz’s relatives said in a statement shared by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of many of the captives held in the Gaza Strip.
“Our family’s healing process will begin now and will not end until the last hostage is returned,” concluded the statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office shortly after the identification of Lifshitz’s body that “the four coffins of our loved ones oblige us more than ever to promise, to swear, that what happened on October 7 will never happen again.
‘Resistance’ to Israeli forces in post-war Gaza, Abbas adviser threatens
(JNS) — Mahmoud al-Habash, a senior adviser to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, threatened that Israeli soldiers, who remain in Gaza after the war against Hamas, will become a “legitimate target for various actions” by Gazans.
“There is no alternative to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza,” al-Habash told Omri Haim, Arab affairs correspondent at Channel 14 News, on Monday. “Neither Netanyahu nor the Netanyahu government are the owners of Gaza.”
“If Israel remains in the Gaza Strip, it will be considered an occupying power and dealt with as an occupying power, including through popular resistance,” al-Habash added.
The Palestinian Authority’s top Sharia judge and a former minister of awqaf (“endowment”) and religious affairs, al-Habash said in a September 2024 interview that he views terror attacks as “resistance,” claiming that such a response is “the right of every Palestinian to defend himself.”
Jerusalem ax attack: Manhunt underway after woman assaulted
(JNS) — A woman in her 50s was seriously wounded after being attacked with an ax inside her home in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday evening, according to the Magen David Adom emergency medical service.
The assailant reportedly fled the scene.
MDA responders, alongside EMTs from United Hatzalah, administered life-saving treatment before evacuating the woman to Shaare Zedek Medical Center. She was conscious upon arrival and is now listed in moderate condition.
Israel Police confirmed that officers arrived shortly after the assault and have launched an extensive manhunt in the area.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
