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The family of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas confirmed on Saturday receipt of her remains, just ahead of the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange under a fragile Gaza ceasefire. Bibas and her two young sons had become symbols of the ordeal suffered by Israeli hostages since the Gaza war began. Palestinian militants seized dozens of captives during their unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered more than 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip.Hamas had said the mother’s remains were among four bodies returned on Thursday, but Israeli analysis concluded they were not in fact hers, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger.Hamas then admitted “the possibility of an error or mix-up of bodies”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.Late Friday the International Committee of the Red Cross had confirmed the transfer of more human remains to Israel “at the request of both parties” but did not say whose they were.”After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most. Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home to her sons, husband, sister, and all her family to rest,” the Bibas family said in a statement.Earlier Saturday Bibas’s kibbutz community, Nir Oz, had announced “the murder of Shiri Bibas.”On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — under domestic pressure over his handling of the war and the hostages — vowed to “ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement”.He accused the Palestinian militant group of murdering young Ariel and Kfir Bibas.Hamas affirmed its “full commitment” to the ongoing ceasefire deal, which has so far seen 19 living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.The group’s armed wing confirmed it would release six living Israelis Saturday in the latest swap since the ceasefire began.- Two locations -Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has published the names of the six Israelis to be freed — Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu.Sayed and Mengistu have been held in Gaza for around a decade.The six are the last living hostages eligible for release under the truce deal’s first phase, which is due to expire in early March. Hamas has also promised to hand over four more bodies next week.A Hamas source told AFP that the Islamist group planned to release two hostages from Rafah, southern Gaza, and then four from Nuseirat in central Gaza later in the morning.At both locations the militants prepared for a now well-rehearsed ceremony, building stages to parade the hostages to be released in front of large posters advertising its cause or praising fallen fighters.The Red Cross has repeatedly appealed for handovers to take place in a dignified manner.Under a cold winter rain in Rafah, Hamas fighters wearing military fatigues, balaclavas and Hamas headbands stood in a square around the space where the handover was to occur. In a show of force after months of bombardment and strikes that killed the group’s top leaders, some fighters held automatic weapons, others rocket launchers.Hamas’s green flag flew around the square on buildings destroyed by war in the Palestinian territory.The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel would free 602 inmates on Saturday as part of the exchange.A spokeswoman for the NGO told AFP that most were Gazans arrested after the war began. She added that 108 of the prisoners would be deported outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories after their release.- ‘No forgiveness’ -On Friday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, after an analysis of the remains, that Palestinian militants had killed the Bibas boys “with their bare hands” in November 2023.Hamas has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed them and their mother early in the war.Shiri’s sister-in-law, Ofri Bibas, said Friday that the family was “not seeking revenge right now”, while levelling a measure of the blame at Netanyahu, telling him there would be “no forgiveness” for abandoning the mother and her young sons.A fourth body, that of Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights, was also returned Thursday during the first transfer of bodies under the truce.Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7 attack that sparked the war. There are 66 hostages still in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,215 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas’s community confirmed her death Saturday after new remains were returned from Gaza, as the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange under a fragile Gaza ceasefire was set to go ahead. Bibas and her two young sons, whose bodies were returned by Hamas to Israel on Thursday, had become symbols of the ordeal suffered by Israeli hostages since the Gaza war began. Hamas had said the mother’s remains were among those returned Thursday, but Israeli analysis concluded they were not in fact hers, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger.”Kibbutz Nir Oz announces with deep pain and sorrow the murder of Shiri Bibas, of blessed memory, who was abducted from her home on October 7 and killed in captivity in Gaza,” her community said in a statement, adding “she will be laid to rest in the land of Israel alongside her two young sons”.The International Committee of the Red Cross had earlier confirmed the transfer of more human remains to Israel “at the request of both parties” but did not say whose they were.On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement” and accused the Palestinian militant group of murdering young Ariel and Kfir Bibas.The group admitted “the possibility of an error or mix-up of bodies”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.Hamas also affirmed its “full commitment” to the ongoing ceasefire deal, which has so far seen 19 living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.The group’s armed wing confirmed it would release six living Israelis Saturday in the seventh swap since the ceasefire began.They are the last living hostages eligible for release under the truce deal’s first phase, which is due to expire in early March. Hamas has also promised to hand over four more bodies next week.The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Friday that Israel would free 602 inmates on Saturday as part of the exchange.A spokeswoman for the NGO told AFP that 445 were Gazans arrested after the war began, while 60 were serving long sentences, 50 were serving life sentences and 47 were re-arrested after being freed in a 2011 prisoner exchange.She added that 108 of the prisoners would be deported outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories after their release.- ‘No forgiveness’ -Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said after an analysis of the remains that Palestinian militants had killed the Bibas boys “with their bare hands”.Hamas, however, has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed them and their mother early in the war.Shiri’s sister-in-law, Ofri Bibas, said Friday that the family was “not seeking revenge right now”, while levelling a measure of the blame at Netanyahu, telling him there would be “no forgiveness” for abandoning the mother and her young sons.A fourth body, that of Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights, was also returned Thursday.Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7 attack that sparked the war. There are 67 hostages still in Gaza, including more than 30 the Israeli military has said are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,214 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally until Friday of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

In a dark stable under a heaving highway in Indonesia’s capital, trucks rumble past emaciated carriage horses tied to pillars in ramshackle wooden stalls, their ribs protruding.The steeds are used to pull traditional wooden carriages known as delman, once a staple of colonial-era transportation, but fading from view in Jakarta in an era dominated by …

The last carriage horses of Indonesia’s capital endure harsh lives Read More »

Arab leaders met in Riyadh on Friday to craft a plan for Gaza’s post-war reconstruction to counter Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the territory without its Palestinian residents.Trump’s plan has united Arab states in opposition to it, but disagreements remain over who should govern Gaza and how its reconstruction can be funded.A photo from the meeting showed the kingdom’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the leaders of other Gulf Arab states, as well as Egypt and Jordan. A source close to the Saudi government confirmed the meeting had finished. He said he did not expect a final statement to be issued as the “discussion was confidential”.The official Saudi Press Agency said the “fraternal consultative” meeting saw an “exchange of views on various regional and international issues, especially joint efforts in support of the Palestinian cause, and developments in the situation in the Gaza Strip”.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s office said he had left the Saudi capital after the sit-down with the leaders of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.- ‘Historic juncture’ -Trump triggered global outrage when he proposed the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and relocate its more than two million residents to Egypt and Jordan.”We’re at a very important historic juncture in the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict… where potentially the United States under Trump could create new facts on the ground that are irreversible,” Andreas Krieg of King’s College London said ahead of the meeting.The Saudi source had told AFP that the summit participants would discuss “a reconstruction plan to counter Trump’s plan for Gaza”.The Gaza Strip is largely in ruins after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, with the United Nations recently estimating that reconstruction will cost more than $53 billion.During a meeting with Trump in Washington on February 11, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Egypt would present a plan for a way forward.The Saudi source had said ahead of the talks that the delegates would discuss “a version of the Egyptian plan”.The Saudi Press Agency said the decisions taken at the “unofficial” meeting would be put on the agenda of an emergency Arab League summit to be held in Egypt on March 4.- Financing -Arab leaders see an alternative plan for Gaza’s reconstruction as essential after Trump pointed to the scale of the task as a justification for relocating its Palestinian residents.Cairo has yet to release the details of its proposal, but former Egyptian diplomat Mohamed Hegazy outlined a plan “in three technical phases over a period of three to five years”.The first phase, lasting six months, would focus on “early recovery” and the removal of debris, he said.The second would require an international conference to set out detailed plans for reconstruction and restoring infrastructure.The final phase would see the provision of housing and services and the establishment of a “political track to implement the two-state solution”, an independent Palestine alongside Israel.An Arab diplomat familiar with Gulf affairs said: “The biggest challenge facing the Egyptian plan is how to finance it.”It would be inconceivable for Arab leaders to meet without reaching a common vision, but the main thing lies in the content of this vision and the ability to implement it.”Krieg said it was a “unique opportunity” for the “Saudis to rally all the other GCC countries, plus Egypt and Jordan, around on this matter, to find a common position to answer what is a kind of very coercive statement that Trump has been making”. 

Israel’s prime minister accused Hamas on Friday of killing two Israeli children in Gaza and said the militants would pay for failing to return their mother, Shiri Bibas, which Hamas blamed on a possible “mix-up” of bodies. Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said after an analysis of the remains that Palestinian militants had killed the Bibas boys “with their bare hands”, while Hamas has long maintained an Israeli air strike killed them and their mother early in the war.Relatives of the Bibas family, however, suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also accountable for the deaths, saying he would receive “no forgiveness” for abandoning the mother and her children during their ordeal. More than 15 months of war have left much of Gaza in ruins after Palestinian militants attacked Israel and seized 251 hostages on October 7, 2023. Sixty-seven hostages remain in Gaza, including more than 30 the Israeli military has said are dead.Despite the tensions over Thursday’s handover of remains, the next swap of live hostages for Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons was still expected to go ahead Saturday under an ongoing truce deal.Hamas had said the four bodies returned on Thursday included those of Bibas and her two sons Ariel, aged four at the time of his abduction, and Kfir, the youngest hostage at just nine months old. On Friday, however, after forensic analysis, Israel said the body purported to be that of Shiri Bibas was not hers, with Netanyahu saying Hamas had “placed the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin”. Hamas admitted “the possibility of an error or mix-up”, which it attributed to Israeli bombing of the area.Netanyahu vowed to “ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement”. In response, Hamas affirmed its “seriousness and full commitment” to its responsibilities under the ceasefire, and said it had “no interest in failing to comply or holding on to any bodies”. It also asked Israel to return the body of the Gazan woman.And later Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it had transferred more human remains “at the request of both parties” to Israeli authorities, but was not able to say if they included the body of Shiri Bibas.- ‘Fear for her fate’ -“Who kidnaps a little boy and a baby and murders them? Monsters. That’s who,” Netanyahu said. “I vow that I will not rest until the savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice.”But the sister-in-law of Shiri Bibas said in a statement that the family was “not seeking revenge right now”, while levelling a measure of the blame at Netanyahu.”There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on October 7, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity,” Ofri Bibas said.”We are still waiting for Shiri and fear for her fate.”British foreign minister David Lammy said that her “body must be returned”, while denouncing the “sick and abhorrent” killing of her sons.”The hostages must be released,” he added. “This nightmare must end.”In Jerusalem, musician David Shemer, 72, said he hoped Israeli would not retaliate.”There are voices about totally destroying Gaza and all this. For me, it’s not only inappropriate, it’s immoral,” he said. “Revenge is a very human impulse, but it is useless.”Hamas also handed over a fourth body on Thursday, that of Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights who was aged 83 at the time of his capture.The repatriations were part of the first phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19 and is to expire in early March. The deal has so far led to the release of 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.Hamas’s armed wing confirmed that it would release six Israelis on Saturday in the seventh swap of the ceasefire.The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said Israel would free 602 inmates in return. Most were arrested after the October 7 attack, it said.Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has published the names of the six Israelis to be freed — Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu.Sayed and Mengistu have been held in Gaza for around a decade.- West Bank operation -Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said talks will begin this week on the truce’s second phase, aiming to lay out a more permanent end to the war.A Hamas spokesman accused Netanyahu on Thursday of “procrastinating” on phase two, saying the group was “ready to engage” in negotiations.Alongside the Gaza war, violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Netanyahu ordered an “intensive operation against centres of terrorism” in the West Bank before visiting troops operating in Tulkarem refugee camp on Friday, his office said.His order came after bombs exploded on three buses in central Israel without causing any injuries. Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,214 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,319 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.