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 airstrike 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.

https://guardian.ng/news/world/netanyahu-vows-militants-to-pay-as-hamas-cites-error-over-bibas-body/