The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | February 21st, 2025: Netanyahu Vows Revenge After Hamas Lies About Returned Remains & Starmer Proposes 30,000 Strong 'Reassurance Force' For Ukraine
22 Feb 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: We’ll begin in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing revenge against Hamas after discovering the terrorist group failed to turn over the remains of an Israeli hostage as promised, throwing the fragile ceasefire into question. Later in the show, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to propose a European-led military force of 30,000 to oversee a potential Ukraine-Russia ceasefire when he meets with President Donald Trump in Washington next week. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Friday, 21 February. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get ourselves briefed. First, Israel is reeling after it was revealed that the terror group Hamas failed to turn over the body of a mother taken captive on 7 October, instead replacing her remains with those of an unknown Palestinian woman.
Later in the show, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will reportedly propose sending a European-led military force of some 30,000 troops to Ukraine to enforce any potential peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, and he'll propose that when he meets with President Trump in Washington, D.C. next week. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin in Israel, where Prime Minister Netanyahu is vowing revenge against Hamas after discovering that the terrorist group failed to turn over the remains of an Israeli hostage as promised, throwing the fragile ceasefire into question.
As we discussed on yesterday's PDB, Hamas claimed to have returned the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, including the remains of Shiri Bibas, a 33-year-old mother taken on 7 October, her two sons, Ariel and Kafir, who were aged four years old and nine months old when they were kidnapped by Hamas, and 84-year-old Adel Lifshitz.
A subsequent forensic analysis performed in Tel Aviv positively identified three of the returned bodies as the Bibas children and Lifshitz, but the Israeli military said Friday the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas or any other known hostage, revealing a cruel deception by Hamas.
Of course, Hamas took women and young children hostage during their 7 October attacks, so the cruelty aspect of this deception should surprise a total of zero people. The idea, said the remains, appeared to be that of an unknown Palestinian woman that Hamas tried to pass off as Shiri Bebas.
The discovery provoked grief and outrage among Israelis, who had already been left disturbed by Hamas's barbaric actions during the transfer of the remains on Thursday, which was turned into a ghoulish, sick public spectacle. On Friday, Netanyahu vowed to ensure that Hamas paid the, quote, full price for this cruel and evil violation of the ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu said, "...the cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds. In an unspeakably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri to her little children, the little angels, and they put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin." The Prime Minister added, "...we will work with determination to bring Shiri home together with all our hostages, both living and dead.
May God avenge their blood, he said, and so we will avenge." Adding insult to the situation, Hamas blamed Israel for what they claimed was a, quote, mix-up, saying the so-called, quote, mistake likely occurred due to Israeli bombings of the area where the hostages were once held. The group had claimed the four hostages were killed in Israeli airstrikes, but, well, that also proved to be false.
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