(20 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tel Aviv, Israel – 20 February 2025
1. Various of Israeli flags at Hostages Square, giant screen showing compilation of photos and videos of family members of hostages believed to have been killed in Gaza and being released by Hamas
STORYLINE:
Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation’s agony after the October 7, 2023, attack.
The remains were said to be of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted. Kfir, who was 9 months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive.
Hamas has said all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes.
Israeli channels did not broadcast the handover.
In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where Israelis have gathered to watch the release of living hostages, a large screen showed a compilation of photos and videos of Lifshitz and the Bibas family, including a chuckling baby Kfir and the family dressed up in Batman costumes.
Dozens of residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, where the four were kidnapped, gathered to wave Israeli flags outside of their temporary home an hour north of the kibbutz.
Israelis have celebrated the return of 24 living hostages in recent weeks under a tenuous ceasefire that paused over 15 months of war.
But the handover on Thursday will provide a grim reminder of those who died in captivity as the talks leading up to the truce dragged on for over a year.
It could also provide impetus for negotiations on the second stage of the ceasefire that have hardly begun.
The first phase is set to end at the beginning of March.
AP video shot by Moshe Edri
===========================================================
Clients are reminded to adhere to all listed restrictions and to check the terms of their licence agreements. For further assistance, please contact the AP Archive on: Tel +44(0)2074827482 Email: info@aparchive.com.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/0615524167d84f56ac7d7f5d1ea3174c
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in February 25, 2025, 9:04 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
