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Israel says Hamas will pay "full price" for handing over remains of Gazan woman instead of hostage Shiri Bibas
CBSN
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make Hamas pay "the full price" for what he called a "cruel and wicked violation" of the tenuous Gaza ceasefire agreement after the Israeli and U.S.-designated terrorist group returned the remains of a Gazan woman instead of an Israeli mother taken hostage with her two young children.
Israeli officials said late Thursday evening that Hamas had handed over the body of an unidentified Gazan woman earlier in the day instead of the remains of Shiri Bibas as expected. In a handover orchestrated under the ceasefire deal that came into effect on Jan. 19, Hamas was supposed to return the bodies on Thursday of Bibas along with her two slain sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, who at just nine months old was the youngest of the 251 Israelis seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
The children's remains were returned, along with the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83, but Netanyahu said that instead of Shiri Bibas' remains, Hamas "put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin."
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Russia has freed a U.S. citizen arrested earlier this month on drug smuggling charges, according to Russian media reports and a U.S. official who spoke with The Associated Press. The move appeared to be an effort to ease tension between Moscow and Washington ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which are expected to focus on the war in Ukraine and the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
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Beijing — China's Foreign Ministry took issue Monday with a revised U.S. government fact sheet that removed a line on American opposition to independence for Taiwan. The United States "gravely backpedaled" on its position on Taiwan and sent the wrong message to "separatist forces" on the island, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.
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American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, was among three hostages released by Hamas on Saturday morning after being held in captivity in Gaza for almost a year and half. The other two hostages handed over to Red Cross personnel in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis were Israelis Sasha Troufanov, 29, and Iair Horn, 46.