Kat Lonsdorf
speaker
695 appearances
75 recordings
5 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 25 Aug
Kat Lonsdorf’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 60 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 13.
Appearances
Up First from NPR · Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons · 22 Feb 2025
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More than 400 of them are Palestinians who had been detained in Gaza during the war, and they're going to be released back to Gaza. Others are being deported to Egypt.
Yeah, so this was the body of Shiri Bibas, who had been captured with her husband and two young sons on October 7th, 2023. And together, the family had become a symbol in Israel of the hostage struggle. Hamas says Shiri and her two children were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war.
Hamas supposedly released their bodies on Thursday, like you said, but when they were taken to a forensic lab here in Israel, it was found that the woman's body was not Shiri. It was an unidentified woman. Hamas then gave a different body back to Israel late last night. That body was then positively identified as Shiri.
The forensic examiner here in Israel found that all three, Shiri and her two young sons, had been, quote, murdered, but did not provide further details or evidence as to how.
So there are four more bodies set to be released next week in this first phase. But there are still dozens of hostages in Gaza. Talks for the next phase of the deal, they were supposed to start weeks ago and they haven't started yet. Hamas has said it's ready to, quote, engage immediately in negotiations. The situation here in Israel is really complicated.
Several far-right members in Israel's government want the war to resume. Meanwhile, most of the Israeli public want the ceasefire to continue and the rest of the hostages to be released. Here's 43-year-old Liat Ellert. She talked to NPR producer Itay Stern this morning, and a crowd of people gathered in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages.
You know, many of the Israelis we talked to today had a similar sentiment. They want this war to be over and they want the rest of the hostages released.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So Hamas says that they are the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kafir, as well as the body of 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz. All four of them were taken hostage in the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Shiri's husband, Yarden, was also taken hostage with the rest of the family on that day.
The Bipis family had become a symbol here in Israel of the plight of the hostages in Gaza. The two children, ages four and nine months when they were captured. were the youngest hostages taken. So Bibas had become this household name here. Posters of their faces were plastered on sidewalks and commemorations had been held in the children's birthdays.
Then the dad was released alive earlier this month. Oded Lifshitz, the other body released today, was a retired journalist and peace activist. His wife had also been taken hostage but was released earlier in the war.
Well, Hamas says all four were killed by Israeli strikes during their time in captivity in Gaza. Israel says it will take the bodies to an Israeli forensic institute here in Tel Aviv, which will examine them and provide official identification and also seek to determine the cause of death.
Yeah, it was definitely more somber and much less celebratory on both sides. In Gaza, large crowds gathered in Khan Yunis in the south. Masked Hamas gunmen presided over a ceremony on a stage with four coffins draped in black. There were large posters on both sides of the stage in Hebrew and English. One depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a fanged vampire.
Another said that if Israel resumed the war, more hostages would come home in coffins. In Israel, unlike previous releases, the Hamas ceremony was not broadcast on Israeli TV and Israeli media outlets did not publish images from it out of respect for the families.
Once the caskets were in Israeli custody, they were then draped with Israeli flags and then they were driven from Gaza to Tel Aviv and large crowds gathered along the route to show solidarity and respect.
Yeah, so Saturday is going to be a big day. The remaining six live hostages that Hamas has committed to releasing in this first phase will be released, including two have been held for around a decade. And they'll be released in exchange for more than 600 Palestinians released from Israeli jails. This first phase of the deal ends on March 2nd.
And so far, talks for the next phase haven't started yet. They were supposed to start weeks ago. So we're really just waiting to see what happens with that. Meanwhile, there still will be dozens of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Around half of them are believed to be alive. That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv.
Hey, Ari.
Yeah, like you said, King Abdullah was reticent on TV and careful not to make any kind of commitment. Both Jordan and Egypt have outright rejected Trump's plan, but Trump has made threats of cuts in U.S. aid and military spending to both. Both Egypt and Jordan depend heavily on U.S. support. Abdullah is in a tough place here, which is why he was so cautious.
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