Macabre Coffin Handover in Gaza Could Alter War’s ‘Day-After’ Strategy 

Will shockwaves in Israel and around the world over the cruelty involved in Hamas’s coffin transfer of four murdered hostages change strategy over the Gaza war’s end-game, and convince skeptics of the need to eliminate Hamas?

AP/Jehad Alshrafi
Hamas fighters take up a position before handing over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including a mother and her two children, to the Red Cross at Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, February 20, 2025. AP/Jehad Alshrafi

UPDATED AT 6:51 P.M. EDT

The two Bibas babies who were kidnapped by Hamas with their mother on October 7, 2023, became a global symbol of the war. On Thursday, the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her boys — Ariel, who was 4 when abducted, and Kfir, who was 9 months old — were returned to Israel. Alongside was the coffin containing 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz. 

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