Middle East crisis live: Israeli military says body of Shiri Bibas is not among returned hostages

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Welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East crisis.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has accused Hamas of a “very serious violation” of the terms of the hostage handover, saying the body of Shiri Bibas was not among the bodies received on Thursday.

It said in a statement: “During the identification process, it was found that the additional body received was not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other abductee.” The bodies of her children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were four years and nine months old respectively, had been identified, the IDF said.

The military has demanded that the body of Shiri Bibas be returned home along with all other hostages. It did not specify a timeframe.

Bibas and her children – who Hamas claims were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the war – became an indelible symbol of the attack of 7 October 2023. Shiri Bibas’s parents were killed in the Hamas offensive, and her husband, Yarden, was taken captive and released earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the military to step up its offensives across the occupied West Bank after a series of bomb blasts involving buses rocked central Israel on Thursday.

“In light of the serious attempted attacks in the Gush Dan [central] area by Palestinian terrorist organisations against the civilian population in Israel, I have instructed the IDF to intensify operations to thwart terrorism in the Tulkarem refugee camp and in all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria” Katz said in a statement, using the biblical term for the West Bank. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the blasts.

More details soon.