Bibas and Lifshitz hostage families cling to hope, say they’ll await final identification of bodies

The families of the four likely dead hostages slated to be returned to Israel on Thursday appeared to cling to hope on Wednesday evening after the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that it had received the list of the first four deceased captives that Hamas would be returning under the terms of the ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The four were named as Oded Lifshitz, and Shiri Silberman Bibas and her two young sons Ariel Bibas and Kfir Bibas, who were just 4 years and 9 months old, respectively, when they were abducted from their home on October 7, 2023.

The bodies of the slain hostages were set to be handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross on Thursday morning, and from there to be transferred to Israeli forces inside the Gaza Strip.

The IDF has said that it will hold a respectful ceremony in Gaza, with a rabbi present, upon receiving the bodies. They will be placed in coffins draped in Israeli flags and carried by Israeli troops into IDF vehicles.

From there, they will be taken to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification, a process that could take up to 48 hours.

“These hours are not easy for us,” the family of Oded Lifshitz, aged 83 at the time of his kidnapping, said after receiving the news. “For 502 days, we hoped and prayed for a different ending.”

“Until we receive absolute certainty, our journey will not end,” the family said, alluding to the lengthy identification process ahead. “And even after that, we will continue to fight until the last hostage is returned.”

Speaking to the Ynet news outlet on Wednesday evening, Yizhar Lifshitz, Oded’s son, acknowledged that everything pointed toward his father’s body being returned tomorrow, but said that until it happens, and “until we are certain they didn’t make some mistake, only then will we receive the answer and that will be it.”

He told the news outlet that the little information he received about his father’s initial weeks in captivity has left him feeling that “as his son, I would have preferred to know that he was murdered on October 7, outside his home in Nir Oz, rather than having to go through all this suffering and torture and be alone and die like a dog there in Gaza.”

“His life ended in a tragic and humiliating, underserved and degrading way,” Yizhar said. “His home was burned down, his wife was kidnapped, having been beaten, which he must have seen… [he died] without family, without children, without closure.”

Lifshitz and his wife Yocheved were taken hostage separately from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of the October 7 onslaught.

Yocheved was freed on October 23, 2023, along with fellow captive Nurit Cooper, and was not held with Oded while in Gaza.

The couple, who were among the founders of Nir Oz, were lifelong peace activists and would regularly transport patients from Gaza to receive medical care in hospitals across Israel.

Oded, a great-grandfather, was a journalist and a passionate advocate for human rights.

The sentiment expressed Wednesday evening by the Lifshitz family was echoed in a brief statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on behalf of the Bibas family.

“Should we receive the devastating news, it must come through the proper official channels after all identification procedures are completed,” the family said. “We ask to refrain from eulogizing our loved ones until there is confirmation following final identification.”

While the Prime Minister’s Office said that it had released the names to the public with the approval of the families, at least one relative denied that the family had been approached with a request for consent before the list was published.

Shortly after the names of the slain hostages were made public, allegedly with the permission of the families, the sister of former hostage Yarden Bibas — Shiri’s husband and the father of Ariel and Kfir — denied that the family had allowed the information to be published.

“The list that has already turned Shiri, Ariel and Kfir into fallen [hostages], published by the Prime Minister’s Office supposedly with the families’ approval, did not even pass our approval,” fumed Ofri Bibas in a post on Facebook.

“We have been waiting for 16 months for certainty [regarding their fate] that they could not give us, and now it’s been decided before they are even here?? Before they have been identified?? Before we have been informed??” she wrote.

In response, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office blamed the military for the release of the names without permission.

“This was a grave mistake on the part of the IDF liaison officers communicating with the Bibas family, which resulted from an unfortunate human error,” said the official.

The PMO source said that the officers had given the green light for the names to be given to the press, even though it later became apparent that the Bibas family had not approved it.

The official said that the officers had been required to confirm that every family approved the publication of the names.

The IDF then took responsibility for the premature announcement, and said it had since spoken with the families.

“We regret the mistake that was made in good faith toward the families and the emotional distress,” the military said.

Shiri Bibas, 32 at the time, was kidnapped from her Nir Oz home on October 7, 2023, along with Ariel and Kfir. The family father, Yarden, was abducted separately, after he left the safe room in an attempt to distract the gunmen and save his family. He was freed from Gaza on February 1.

Footage from the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel showed Bibas clutching her red-headed sons as they were led away by Hamas gunmen. The IDF later released a video it found, showing them being moved between buildings in Khan Younis in the early days of their captivity.

Their fate since then has remained unknown, and Hamas claimed in November 2023 that they had been killed in an IDF airstrike. Israel did not confirm the claim, which it said was cruel propaganda, but has acknowledged since that there are “grave concerns” for the young family.

Touching on the deep uncertainty that has plagued the families over the past year and four months, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Wednesday that “along with the heavy sorrow, their return for burial creates certainty for their loved ones and closes the agonizing period of uncertainty that has lasted for 502 days.”

The forum pointed out that even now, “there are another 69 hostages being held captive by Hamas, for whom there is still no release date,” demanding that the government “expedite the negotiations and work for the immediate return of all the hostages.”

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Related: The Bibas family remains captive in Gaza. A nation hopes against hope for their return

Other families wait in the dark

Even as the families of the four hostages braced for the return of their loved ones in coffins and for final confirmation as to what befell them, other families were still waiting in the dark.

On Wednesday evening, Hagit and Ruby Chen, the parents of Sgt. Itay Chen, told a Zoom press conference that they cannot grieve until they are certain that their 19-year-old son, a tank crew member, was killed by Hamas on October 7.

“One day, you wake up and your child disappears,” said Ruby. “It isn’t something that you can process.”

Chen was originally considered missing in action after Hamas stormed the Nahal Oz army base where he was stationed, and he is believed to be among the 251 hostages abducted to Gaza.

In March 2024, the IDF’s chief rabbi declared his death, based on what were then new findings and intelligence information.

Despite this, Hagit said that the family “cannot sit Shiva, and we cannot start to mourn.”

“We were told that there is information that Itay is not alive, and as far as Israel is concerned, Itay is not alive. But they didn’t bring me anything physical to see that he is not alive, so I cannot acknowledge that. I still pray that they are wrong and it’s a mistake,” she said.

Hamas has so far released 24 hostages — 19 Israeli civilians and female soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during the current ceasefire, which began on January 19. The terror group also freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.

Seventy of the hostages abducted on October 7 remain in Gaza, along with three captives held from before the war; 36 of them have been confirmed dead by the IDF.

Following the return of the four bodies on Thursday, Hamas will release on Saturday the final six living hostages stipulated for return in the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

Among the six will be Israelis Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held by Hamas since they entered the Strip on their own in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

The other four — Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert and Eliya Cohen — were kidnapped during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Lazar Berman and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.