Hamas has handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages in a show of force and propaganda. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the handover took place in the Gaza Strip. Four black coffins were placed on a stage, with a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the background, in which he appears as a vampire. "War criminal Netanyahu and his army killed them with missiles from Zionist warplanes," the statement said. An Israeli news anchor spoke of a "theatre of terror."
Hamas flags were seen all around and loud music was playing from loudspeakers. Thousands of people, including many masked extremists, but also cheering spectators were there. The ceremony in Khan Yunis was also broadcast live on television. Red Cross staff had previously called for more human dignity in the handover of the hostages.
Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog expressed his deep sadness after the surrender of the bodies. "Torture. Pain. I have no words to express the pain," Herzog said in a statement. "Our hearts - the hearts of an entire nation - are broken."
"This is a very difficult day for the state of Israel. A shocking day, a day of sorrow. We are bringing home four of our favorite hostages, the fallen hostages. We hug the families and the heart of an entire nation is broken. My heart is broken. Yours too. And the heart of the entire world should be broken, because here we see who we are dealing with, what we are dealing with but we are also determined to ensure that something like this never happens again," said Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.
Israel now wants to verify the identities of the bodies. According to public broadcaster Kan, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv has mobilized ten doctors to expedite the identification. According to Hamas, the dead are hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons. All three also have German citizenship. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has already expressed his condolences to the relatives. The deaths of the three people kidnapped by the radical Islamist Hamas on October 7 have "become a terrible certainty," Scholz said Thursday on the online service X. "I feel for everyone who has to deal with this terrible certainty," he added. (A2 Televizion)
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