Hamas has claimed its youngest hostage - a 10-month-old boy - has been killed along with his four-year-old brother and their mother.
Shiri Bibas and Kfir and Ariel Bibas were taken during the terror attack on Israel in October and were the highest-profile civilian hostages yet to be freed.
“There have been occasions in the last week or so when hostages who had been declared dead by one of the armed groups in Gaza actually turned out not to have died - and have subsequently been released,” said Bunkall.
It’s bizarre for an article to quote her here without the article talking about any examples.
The only instance of this I can recall off the top of my head is PIJ claiming that Hanna Katzir was killed. Hamas have not publicly announced the death of any hostages in ways that have been confirmed or reported by respectable journalists, but there is lots of propaganda being spread through Telegram and other platforms.
declaring them dead means they have to give up the bodies. but terrorist think if they declare them dead they can keep them for future demands or exchanges. so both cases are possible but hamas being experineced in this maccabre trade knows that dead means handing over the bodies, otherwise no peace.
Dunno why this was deleted before. Posted with a new source.
Rule 1
The previous had a post title that did not match the article title
I can’t even imagine the level of evil that it would take to make the decision not to let them go. It’s truly mad.
Both sides are wrong, wrong, wrong and I am tried of people thinking Hamas did nothing wrong, and its all Isreal.
Both sides need to remove all the people involved and start with new groups that aren’t terrorists or right-wing authoritarians.
Hamas claims they’re buried under rubble from an Israeli airstrike. I sure wonder why there’s difficulties recovering the bodies…
Hamas is scum
Imagine caring for a 10 month old baby while being abducted and held hostage by genocidal terrorists
And then getting bombed by your own country. Just imagine it.
And then having to live through the deaths of both children, while in captivity. Horrible.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The group’s armed wing, al Qassam Brigades, said on social media that Mrs Bibas, 32, and her sons died in an Israeli airstrike before the current ceasefire.
“IDF representatives spoke with the members of the Bibas family, informed them of the publication [of the claims] and are with them at this time,” a statement read.
Relatives made a special appeal on Tuesday after the family was left off the penultimate list of people to be freed under the current truce deal.
“We reach a dead end every time we try to figure out why Hamas is having so much trouble getting them back, or whether that means if they’re alive or not,” she said.
Sky’s Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said the family would now be desperately hoping the Hamas claim is false.
“There have been occasions in the last week or so when hostages who had been declared dead by one of the armed groups in Gaza actually turned out not to have died - and have subsequently been released,” said Bunkall.
The original article contains 445 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I wonder if anyone have heard that there is a war going on between Russia and Ukraine?
