Closing summary
We’re closing this blog shortly, here’s a summary of the day’s developments:
The remains of two young children, their mother, and an elderly man taken hostage by Hamas have been returned to Israel in what onlookers described as one of the “worst days” for Israelis since the Palestinian militant group attack that ignited the war in Gaza
The bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, who Hamas says were killed in an Israeli airstrike, as well as Oded Lifshitz, were handed to the Red Cross in coffins after a ceremony in Khan Younis
The United Nations rights chief said the parading of bodies in Gaza was abhorrent and flies in the face of international law
Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, has asked for “forgiveness” for not protecting the nation’s citizens in the Oct 7 attack, as bodies of hostages were returned.
You can read Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan’s full report here:
Updated
In an update to our earlier post about the Saudi crown prince inviting leaders for a meeting in Riyadh on Friday, the Saudi state news agency SPA has further details.
Arab states have pledged to work on a postwar plan for the Gaza Strip’s reconstruction to counter US president Donald Trump’s proposal to redevelop the territory as an international beach resort after resettling its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia said Friday’s meeting would be unofficial and held within “the framework of the close brotherly relations that bring together the leaders”, SPA said.
“As for joint Arab action and the decisions issued regarding it, it will be on the agenda of the upcoming emergency Arab summit that will be held in the sisterly Arab republic of Egypt,” SPA added, referring to plans for an emergency Arab summit on 4 March to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Seven civilians killed when unexploded munitions ignited at house in northwestern Syria, says war monitor
At least seven civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed on Thursday when unexploded munitions ignited at a house in northwestern Syria, a war monitor said.
The Syrian observatory for human rights reported the deadly blast a day after another organisation said two-thirds of Syrians risked being killed or wounded by unexploded ordnance.
“Seven civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed when leftover munitions stored inside a house” in Idlib province exploded, the observatory said.
An AFP correspondent saw civil defence teams retrieving bodies from the rubble of the destroyed house in Al-Nayrab on the outskirts of the main northern city of Aleppo.
Civil defence worker Mohammed Ibrahim said they had been called to the scene of an “explosion of unknown provenance”.
“When teams headed to the site, they found unexploded ordnance,” he added.
The observatory said the owner of the house was a scrap dealer who collected unexploded ordnance for its metal content.
Residents told AFP that the owner had stored the munitions adjacent to the house.
Journalists were not allowed to approach the site for fear of further explosions.
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has invited the leaders of Gulf Arab countries, Egypt, and Jordan for a “brotherly unofficial” meeting in Riyadh on Friday, Saudi state news agency (SPA) reported.
The meeting will discuss the emergency Arab summit that Egypt will host on 4 March for developments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Updated
A convoy carrying the bodies of four Israeli hostages, believed to include three members of the Bibas family and an elderly captive, arrived at Tel Aviv’s forensic centre on Thursday, an AFP journalist reported.
Palestinian militants from Hamas and other factions handed over the four black coffins to the Red Cross earlier on Thursday as part of an ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel.
Updated
Parading bodies of hostages in Gaza abhorrent and cruel, UN Rights Chief
The United Nations rights chief said on Thursday the parading of bodies in Gaza is abhorrent and flies in the face of international law.
Hamas handed over the bodies of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Airel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their October 7, 2023 attack. The bodies of their mother Shiri Bibas and a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, were handed over under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month.
“Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families”, Volker Turk said in a statement.
Dozens of flag-waving Israelis gathered under a stormy sky Thursday lining the route of a convoy bringing home the bodies of four deceased hostages handed over by Hamas in Gaza.
Some 100 Israelis had also gathered at the Tel Aviv plaza dubbed Hostages Square - site of regular protests for the release of the hostages.
“This is one of the hardest days, I think, since October 7,” said museum manager Tania Coen Uzzielli, 59, who had gathered in the square with around 100 others.
“I think the feeling of personal guilt is something each of us carries - that maybe we could have done more, that maybe we didn’t do enough to prevent this tragedy.”
Large screens in the square showed images of the Bibas family and Lifshitz, while orange balloons symbolised the red hair of the two Bibas children, who were aged four and nine months at the time of their capture.
Mourners in Israel have lined the streets to watch the coffins of released hostages be returned to the nation. In pictures:
Updated
Lawyers for British hostage families say bodies represent "four total failures"
Lawyers for the families of British hostages say the release of four bodies represents “four total failures”.
Adam Rose, a partner at Mishcon de Reya and Adam Wagner, a barrister at Doughty Street chambers, released the statement today.
“Today, 20 February 2025, is one of immense sadness, and of failure. It appears that 503 days after they were taken from their homes by Hamas terrorists, the bodies of four people have been returned to Israel”, they wrote.
“We cannot confirm yet whose bodies have been returned, but four bodies represent four whole worlds, and four total failures – as we said when we took the British hostage families to meet with Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Sir Kier Starmer in Downing Street: this is what failure looks like.
It came as no surprise that the terrorists chose to make a gruesome pantomime of the handover of the bodies this morning. Hostage taking is inherently abusive and undignified - that is why it is a war crime.”
Rose and Wagner were advising the families of ten hostages held in Gaza who are British or have close links to the UK – five of who had been freed, three had been murdered and two remained in captivity.
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BY LAWYERS FOR THE BRITISH HOSTAGE FAMILIES
— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) February 20, 2025
20 February 2025
Today, 20 February 2025, is one of immense sadness, and of failure.
It appears that 503 days after they were taken from their homes by Hamas terrorists, the bodies of four people have… pic.twitter.com/B9EKEKZnlY
Updated
The Israeli military says the coffins of the four deceased hostages that have now been transported into Israel.
It also said that after the hostages were handed over by the Red Cross, the coffins were scanned for explosives.
Updated
A few hours after Hamas said it would return the bodies of Israeli hostages Shiri Bibas and her two little children on Thursday, her sister-in-law said she had not given up hope of seeing them return home, alive.
“I ask you not to eulogise my family yet,” Ofri Bibas Levy posted on Facebook. “We have been hoping for 16 months and we will not give up hope now.”
But when Hamas unveiled black coffins on a stage under a rain-washed grey sky in southern Gaza, with the photos of the two Bibas children and their mother pinned onto them, one on each of the caskets, hope in Israel turned to grief.
Shiri Bibas and her ginger-haired sons, Ariel and baby Kfir, have become a symbol for Israelis of the ruthlessness of the October 7, 2023 attack, when they were abducted by Palestinian militants from their kibbutz, Nir Oz, and taken to Gaza.
One in four Nir Oz residents were either killed or kidnapped that day. Images of a terrified Shiri Bibas surrounded by gunmen and clutching her boys, aged four and nine months at the time, circulated on social media within hours of the abduction.
Updated
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is heading to Saudi Arabia, state TV reported on Thursday, and is expected to discuss Gaza developments while there.
Arab states plan to discuss a post-war plan for Gaza reconstruction, possibly to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to redevelop the strip under U.S. control, Reuters reports.
The military planned to hold a small funeral ceremony, at the request of the families, before transferring the bodies to a laboratory for formal identification using DNA, a process that could take up to two days, AP reports. Only then will the families be given the final notification.
Israeli channels did not broadcast the handover. In Hostage 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.
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 was 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.
Updated
Israeli president asks for forgiveness after bodies of hostages returned
Isaac Herzog, the President of the State of Israel, has asked for “forgiveness” for not protecting the nation’s citizens in the Oct 7 attack, as bodies of hostages were returned.
Posting on ‘X’, Herzog wrote: “Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters.
“On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely. May their memory be a blessing.”
Agony. Pain. There are no words.
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) February 20, 2025
Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters.
On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.
May…
Oded Lifshitz was 83 when he was abducted from Nir Oz, the kibbutz he helped found. His wife, Yocheved, 85 at the time, was seized with him and released two weeks later, along with another elderly woman.
Lifshitz was a former journalist. In an op-ed he published in left-leaning Haaretz in January 2019, titled “Defender of Israel He Is Not”, he questioned Netanyahu’s security credentials and criticised his policies, including on Hamas and Gaza.
Among what he listed as Netanyahu’s policy failures, Lifshitz noted his rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians and a 2011 deal that exchanged more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Updated
Israel’s military says it has received remains of captives handed over by Hamas as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
It said that “the hostages’ bodies were handed over” to it and the Shin Bet internal security agency in Gaza.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “received the caskets of four fallen hostages”.
Updated
Following the handover of the bodies, the remains will be moved into coffins draped with the Israeli flag and an army rabbi will preside over a short ceremony.
They will then be taken to Israel’s national forensic institute to be identified, a process that could take a few hours or even a few days.
Updated
Hamas hands bodies of four hostages to Red Cross in Gaza
The handover of the four bodies from Hamas to the Red Cross is now complete.
The vehicles are on their way to Israel, and the crowd in Khan Younis is beginning to disperse.
Updated
Here are some more images from Khan Younis:
Updated
After briefly being displayed on stage, the four coffins are now being carried by Hamas fighters to the Red Cross vehicles.
Live TV footage, which we are choosing not to share, shows the Red Cross vehicles preparing to receive the bodies of the hostages.
In addition to Hamas fighters, there is a large crowd of civilians around the vehicles in southern Gaza.
Unlike some of the earlier handovers, the scene appears calm and without celebration.
A reminder of the bodies being handed over today. They are:
Shiri Bibas her two children, Ariel and Kfir, who Hamas says were killed in an Israeli airstrike, as well as Oded Lifshitz, 83.
Red Cross vehicles have now arrived at the site of the handover, live TV footage shows.
A Red Cross official is now on a stage, prepared by Hamas, signing documents.
Updated
Hamas members have gathered in Gaza ahead of the handover:
The BBC has been asked to remove a documentary about children living in Gaza from BBC iPlayer after it emerged the film’s 13-year-old narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, a deputy agriculture minister in the territory’s Hamas-run government.
The corporation said that it had discovered the family connections of the film’s English-speaking narrator, a child called Abdullah, after the documentary was aired on BBC Two on Monday evening.
A new text attached to the film, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, reads: “The narrator of this film is 13-year-old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah.”
The decision came after the connection was exposed in a blogpost by an antisemitism researcher, David Collier, on Tuesday and reported on in the Jewish Chronicle.
A group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including present and former BBC staff, signed a letter to the BBC director general, Tim Davie, demanding the documentary be “removed” from iPlayer and questioning whether the film violated Ofcom rules.
Hamas offers handover of all hostages to Israel if next phase of ceasefire agreed
Ahead of today’s release, Hamas said it is ready to release all its remaining hostages in a single exchange if the ceasefire agreement with Israel moves forward to a second phase next month.
The offer came as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, signalled his readiness to talk about a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire after an extended delay, by appointing one of his closest advisers, Ron Dermer, a US-born cabinet minister and former ambassador to Washington, to lead the Israeli delegation to the talks.
Dermer replaces the heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service, who have led the negotiations until now and have frequently been at odds with Netanyahu over his reluctance to move forward with the ceasefire.
In the final steps of the first phase, Hamas will hand over the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including those of two young boys from the same family. The group will release six hostages on Sunday and then transfer four more bodies next Thursday.
That will complete the first six-week phase of the ceasefire, due to end on 1 March, leaving a further 58 hostages in the hands of Hamas and allied militant groups in Gaza. Israel believes that 34 of the remaining hostages are dead.
The agreed plan for the second phase was for hostages and bodies of the dead to be exchanged for Palestinian detainees and prisoners in staggered groups. But Hamas suggested on Wednesday it was prepared to accelerate the process.
Opening summary
Hello, we are restarting our live coverage of the Middle East.
Hamas is set to return the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including a mother and her two children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation’s agony following the 7 October 2023 attack.
The remains to be released from the Gaza Strip are of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir. Kfir was the youngest captive taken that day. Hamas has said all three were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. The militant group also plans to release the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted.
“The heart of an entire nation breaks,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday in anticipation of the bodies being returned to Israel.
Thousands of people, including large numbers of masked and armed fighters from Hamas and other factions, gathered at the handover site on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where large banners had been set up, including one showing an image of coffins draped in Israeli flags.
There were no plans to broadcast the handover live in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, where Israelis have gathered to watch the release of living hostages. The square was empty as it rained on and off in both locations, which are about 100 km apart.
In other key developments:
Hamas has said it is ready to release all its remaining hostages in a single exchange if the ceasefire agreement with Israel moves forward to a second phase next month. A senior Hamas official, Taher al-Nunu, told Agence France-Presse “We have informed the mediators that Hamas is ready to release all hostages in one batch during the second phase of the agreement, rather than in stages, as in the current first phase.”
The offer came as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, signalled his readiness to talk about a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire after an extended delay, by appointing one of his closest advisers, Ron Dermer, a US-born cabinet minister and former ambassador to Washington, to lead the Israeli delegation to the talks. Dermer replaces the heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service, who have led the negotiations until now and have frequently been at odds with Netanyahu over his reluctance to move forward with the ceasefire.
Arab leaders will gather in Saudi Arabia on Friday to counter President Donald Trump’s plan for US control of Gaza and the expulsion of its inhabitants, diplomatic and government sources said. The plan stirred rare unity among Arab states which roundly rejected the idea, but they could still disagree over who will govern the Palestinian territory and who will pay for reconstruction.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio met on Wednesday with the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, after talks in Israel and in Saudi Arabia. The UAE has been key in mediating between Israel and Gaza. Wednesday’s meeting included discussions on artificial intelligence, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and the Red Sea, which had been the site of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels until the Gaza ceasefire a state department spokesperson said.
