Israel accuses Hamas of 'evil' violation of ceasefire
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What are the main news stories covered in this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 21st of February, these are our main stories. The Israeli Prime Minister has accused Hamas of a cruel and evil violation of the ceasefire in Gaza. And Sweden's Coast Guard is investigating new damage to a cable under the Baltic Sea after a series of suspected Russian sabotage attacks in the area.
Also in this podcast... I opened the window and the light shone through really bright and he squinted. I remember welling up because that was the first time that Jace ever had any reaction to any sort of light stimulus.
We hear about the new gene therapy cure for childhood blindness. The Gaza ceasefire agreement has always been a precarious one. Now Israel has accused Hamas of violating the deal after it said its forensic testing revealed the body returned from Gaza on Thursday was not that of Shiri Bibas. Three other bodies were handed over, the two Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, and the peace activist Oded Lifshitz. Here's the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds. Not only did they abduct the father, Yarden Bibas, the young mother, Shiri, and their two small infants, in an unimaginably cynical manner, they didn't return Shiri to her small children and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin. We will act with determination to bring Shiri home, along with all of our captives, both the living and the fallen, and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement.
Well, Hamas has said that it's investigating a possible mix-up of bodies and called on Israel to return the mistakenly sent remains. On Saturday, a further hostage-prisoner exchange is due to take place, in which six Israelis will be returned by Hamas and more than 600 Palestinians will be released from Israeli jails. Our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, is in Jerusalem.
Hamas has said that there is a possibility of an error, that there might have been human remains that got mixed due to Israeli airstrikes. Hamas has always said that the Bibas family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023, just a month or so after they were abducted on October the 7th. I mean, it's strange that they're saying that now. If they knew that beforehand, then they were taking a huge risk, perhaps a very provocative risk. If they still sent the body, they must have known that Israel was going to conduct a very intense forensic investigation. I mean, there are other possibilities. Again, it's speculation, but Hamas didn't actually abduct the Bebas family. They were taken by another armed faction and, as far as we know, were then passed on to another after that, but not Hamas. So, we've had this before when Hamas had been asked by Israel to give a precise list of all the hostages and their condition and things looked like they were about to fall apart.
I mean, this was one of the things that broke apart ceasefire deals previously when it looked like they might happen. And, you know, it might have been then that Hamas simply didn't know those details in the past. And possibly this is the case again. But I think what's clear is that the Israeli government and the Israeli public won't take heed of what Hamas has said in any way for now, unless it provides serious evidence. And this demand that the body of Shiri Bebas is somehow returned to Israel was will continue.
So given what you've just said, Sebastian, how likely is it that this will jeopardise Saturday's exchange and the wider ceasefire deal?
I think it might affect the wider ceasefire deal more than the exchange on Saturday. We'll have to see. I mean, we have received the notification from Hamas, which it's given to Israel, of of the six living hostages who are going to be released, who are due to be released on Saturday. So that part of a schedule is still going ahead. Hamas has also said that it is expecting just over 600 Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange. We haven't yet received information about that. We haven't received anything from Israel saying that it would delay or somehow get them away of that. So at the moment... The expectation is that in the immediate future, the ceasefire deal, which is still in phase one, will go ahead.
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