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Fatal Gaza strike
Al Jazeera reported that Palestinians held a funeral for a father, a mother and their six-year-old daughter killed in an Israeli air attack on an apartment building in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
Health officials said the couple’s son was the only survivor of the attack, and Al Jazeera published the item with a date of 15 Jul 2026.
In a separate BBC report from Jerusalem and London, Avi Harush described learning that his 20-year-old son, Reef, had been killed in combat on April 6, 2024, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Harush said, "They said that Reef was in the window during which sperm could be retrieved, and they asked if we were interested," linking the war’s losses to the legal process families face after Hamas’s October 7 attacks.
Bereaved families and law
The BBC said more bereaved parents in Israel are asking that the semen of their sons—often soldiers—be retrieved and frozen, and it described how some rules were relaxed in the wake of Hamas's October 7 attacks.
It reported that Israel launched a sweeping military operation in Gaza, during which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry, and that about 400 Israelis have also been killed during the war.
The BBC also quoted Avi Harush saying, "Despite this terrible loss, we chose to live," after he recalled that his son Reef "lived his life to the fullest."
In the same BBC account, it said the Israeli Health Ministry did away with the requirement for parents to obtain a court decision to request this procedure in October, while the process still raises "complex ethical and legal questions."
Hostages, bodies, and exchange
Le Devoir reported that Israel accused Hamas of having killed the Bibas children Ariel and Kfir during their captivity in Gaza and of handing over the body of an unknown person in place of their mother Shiri Bibas.
Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Telegram, "Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists," and the article said Hamas has maintained the children were killed in Israeli bombardments on Gaza.
Le Devoir added that the remains of four people were handed over on Thursday by Hamas to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and then to the Israeli army, and it identified the fourth body as that of Oded Lifshitz, a former journalist aged 83 on the day of his capture during the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
The article said the agreement provides, by the end of its first phase on March 1, for the release to Israel of a total of 33 hostages, including eight dead, in exchange for the release of 1,900 Palestinians held by Israel, and it reported that on Saturday Hamas is scheduled to release six living hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held.
