UPDATE - 'We wanted your sons to return alive,' Hamas tells families of killed Israeli hostages

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) - The Palestinian resistance group Hamas said Thursday that it sought to keep the Israeli hostages in its custody alive, but that they were killed by the Israeli army under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on continuing the war on Gaza.

Hamas handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two children; Ariel and Kfir, and Oded Lifshitz in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip early Thursday under a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.

On the handover of the bodies of four Israeli captives, Hamas said in a statement that it "preserved the lives of the occupation prisoners," provided them with what they could, and "treated them humanely, but their army killed them along with their captors."

"Criminal Netanyahu is crying today over the bodies of his prisoners who returned to him in coffins, in a blatant attempt to evade responsibility for their killing in front of his audience," Hamas also said.

While addressing the families of the killed Israeli captives - the families of Bibas and Lifshitz - it said: "We would have preferred your sons to return to you alive, but your army and government leaders chose to kill them instead of bringing them back."

"You were the victim of a leadership that does not care about its children," Hamas said in its message to families of the killed hostages.

Affirming that the four captives were killed by Israeli bombardment on Gaza, Hamas said the Israeli government "bears full responsibility after repeatedly obstructing the exchange agreement."

The resistance group stressed that a prisoner swap deal "is the only way to return the captives alive to their families," warning that "any attempt to bring them back by military force or return to war will only result in more losses among the captives."

The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement took effect on Jan. 19, pausing Israel’s genocidal war that has killed at least 48,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.