US threatens ‘annihilation’ after Hamas returns bodies of Bibas boys without their mother
Argentina declares 2 days of mourning as terror group returns bodies of dual-citizens Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, along with body that Hamas falsely claimed was mother Shiri Bibas
The United States on Friday condemned Hamas and threatened it with “total annihilation” if the terror group does not release everyone it’s holding hostage, as news broke that the terror group had given Israel a stranger’s body, claiming it was that of hostage Shiri Silberman Bibas.
An Israeli forensics lab confirmed earlier Friday morning that the remains were not a match for her DNA, nor that of any other hostage, but at the same time verified the identity of three slain hostages handed off on Thursday as part of a hostage-ceasefire deal: 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, and Shiri’s two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.
Ariel, 4, and Kfir, just 9 months old, were kidnapped alive along with their mother from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. The family’s father Yarden was abducted and held separately, and released on February 1. The IDF confirmed, following a forensic examination, that Ariel and Kfir were “brutally murdered” by their captors in late November 2023.
Adam Boehler, who serves as the United States envoy for hostages, called the Hamas decision on Thursday to release the unidentified body, claiming it was the hostage mother’s, “horrific” and a “clear violation” of the ceasefire, in an interview with CNN.
“If I were them, I’d release everybody or they are going to face total annihilation,” he said.
Boehler added that Israel gave advance notice to senior US officials that the remains were not of Shiri Bibas and that forensic evidence determined that her sons Ariel and Kfir were murdered in November 2023 by terrorists.
The remains of an Israeli mother and her two young children were expected to be released by Hamas today. U.S. Envoy for Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler reacts to the shocking development that Israel says one of the four remains did not actually belong to any of the Israeli hostages. pic.twitter.com/Vus6WAgZCG
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) February 21, 2025
“I don’t know what [Hamas] thought when they put the body of somebody else in a coffin and said that it was the mother of two kids who had been brutally murdered, whether they thought Israel wouldn’t find that or not, but it’s absolutely stunning,” he said.
Boehler’s comments came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Thursday for Hamas to be “eradicated,” in a statement issued prior to the revelation that Shiri Bibas’s body was not among those returned to Israel earlier that day.
“On October 7, 2023, terrorists in Gaza abducted a mother, her child, her infant son, and an 83-year-old man and murdered them,” he wrote. “More than 500 days later, Hamas returned them to Israel in coffins. We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims’ families who have suffered the unimaginable.”
“Hamas is evil – pure evil – and must be eradicated. ALL hostages must come home NOW,” Rubio said.
The terror group’s bait-and-switch also drew a response from US Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York — a prominent pro-Israel voice in the Democratic party — who noted that just hours before the identities of the Bibas children were confirmed, Israel was targeted by a seemingly botched bus-bombing plot.
“Those who insist that Israel stop defending itself in the face of genocidal terror are asking the world’s only Jewish State to sign a suicide pact that no other nation-state, including our own, would ever sign,” he wrote.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in a post to X on Friday, wrote: “We mourn the loss of Oded [Lifshitz], whose remains have been handed over to Israel. Our thoughts are with the Silbermann-Bibas family, who have to say goodbye to Ariel and Kfir, but continue to worry about Shiri — she too must return, Hamas must release her.”
In a post on Thursday — prior to the forensic lab’s announcement of its findings — Scholz had referred to the “terrible certainty” of the four hostages’ deaths.
Red Cross ‘concerned’ over Hamas hostage releases
The Red Cross on Friday sought to distance itself from the handover of an unknown Gazan woman’s body in place of Shiri Bibas, telling Reuters that “the ICRC does not participate in sorting, screening, or examining the deceased — this is the responsibility of the parties to the conflict.”
It said, however, that it was “concerned and unsatisfied” by the way the hostage release operations have taken place.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres similarly condemned Hamas on Thursday for “the parading of bodies and displaying of the coffins of the deceased Israeli hostages” in Gaza yesterday before returning them to Israel — though he did not mention Hamas’s release of a stranger in place of Shiri Bibas, which had already become public by the time of his statement.
“Under international law, any handover of the remains of the deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families,” Guterres wrote on the social platform X.
Argentina calls two days of mourning for Bibas boys
After Israel confirmed that it had received the bodies of the two Bibas boys, Argentine president Javier Milei called for two days of national mourning for the young children, who held dual Israeli-Argentine citizenship.
“According to the National Center of Forensic Medicine, the children were brutally assassinated in captivity by Hamas terrorists in November 2023. It is monstrous that these events happen in this century, and that their death is due to a single motivation: to be Jews,” Milei wrote on X.
“The president of the nation decrees national mourning for two days in memory of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and expresses in the name of Argentines, condolences to the family, especially Yarden Bibas, father of the boys, who having suffered from the torment of being held hostage for 484 days, today is faced with his worst nightmare.”
Argentina calls for the immediate release of the other hostages in Gaza, Milei added.
The City of Buenos Aires also honored the Argentine-Israeli Bibas family by projecting their image on the national historic monument the Obelisco and illuminating a public structure with orange lights — the color of the Bibas children’s bright hair.
*La Ciudad interviene el Obelisco con un mapping en apoyo al Papa Francisco y un homenaje a la familia Bibas*
El Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires interviene el Obelisco con un mapping especial en apoyo al Papa Francisco, quien atraviesa un delicado momento de salud. Hasta… pic.twitter.com/CZ9pKaearu
— Radio Jai (@fmjai) February 21, 2025
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Friday that he spoke with his Argentine counterpart, Gerardo Werthein, and thanked him for the decision to call days of mourning over the young hostages.
“We value Argentina’s moral stance against the absolute evil of Hamas, which must be eradicated, and the true friendship of Argentina under President Javier Milei’s leadership,” said Sa’ar.
Shiri’s father, Yossi Silberman, was a native of Argentina who moved to Israel decades ago. Yossi and his wife Margit were murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Sixty-seven of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014.
The terror group is set to release six living hostages on Saturday.
The Times of Israel Community.