Free Republic

If Hamas’s statement is true, this week will bring a tragic, though not unexpected, close to a painful episode: the fate of the rest of the Bibas family. Yarden Bibas was released this month by Hamas after nearly 500 days in captivity, and the terror group is claiming it will soon deliver the bodies of his wife, Shiri, and two sons, Ariel and Kfir. Ariel was four when he was taken on Oct. 7, 2023, and Kfir was nine months old.

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. His status was announced in an Internet statement by...