Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation’s agony following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
The remains were said to be of Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, as well as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted. Kfir, who was nine months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive. Hamas has said all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes.
Red Cross vehicles drove away from the handover site in the Gaza Strip with four black coffins that had been placed on a stage. Each of the caskets had a small picture of the hostages.
Hamas handed over the bodies under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing ofthe United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief video statement that Thursday would be “a very difficult day for the state of Israel. An upsetting day, a day of grief.”
Hundreds of people gathered in the winter cold ahead of the handover at Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Armed Hamas militants in black and camouflage uniforms toured the area.
One militant stood beside a poster of a man standing over coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. Instead of legs he had tree roots in the ground, suggesting the land belongs to Palestinians. The poster read “The Return of the War = The Return of your Prisoners in Coffins.”
The Bibas family, including their father Yarden, were abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza on October 7.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike but their deaths were never confirmed by Israeli authorities and even at the last minute, some refused to accept they were dead.
“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, which lost around a quarter of its inhabitants, either killed or kidnapped, during the Oct. 7 assault. “I still hope that they will be alive.”
Father released earlier
Yarden Bibas was returned in an earlier exchange of hostages for prisoners this month. But the family said this week their “journey is not over” until they received final confirmation of what happened to the boys and their mother.
“We wake up to a difficult morning for all of us. A morning that sharpens the cruelty of our enemies and the justice of our determined war against them until they are destroyed from the face of the earth,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on the X social media platform.
At the handover site, a large poster was hung up, depicting Netanyahu as a vampire standing over images of the four hostages. “The War Criminal Netanyahu & His Nazi Army Killed Them with Missiles from Zionist Warplanes,” the poster read.
Following the handover, the remains will be moved into coffins draped with the Israeli flag and an army rabbi will provide over a short ceremony. They will then be taken into Israel to the national forensic institute to be identified, a process that could take a few hours or even a few days.
Only after identification will there be a formal announcement of their deaths and a funeral.
Identities not confirmed
The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.
Despite accusations on both sides of ceasefire breaches, the fragile agreement that took effect on January 19 has held up since the first in a series of exchanges of hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
Netanyahu has faced criticism from his far-right coalition allies for agreeing to the deal, which some in Israel feel rewards Hamas and leaves the militant group in place in Gaza.
But successive surveys have shown broad support among the public for the ceasefire, and thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demand the government stick to the deal until all the remaining hostages are returned.
Israel invaded the coastal enclave after the Hamas-led attack on communities in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and taking 251 as hostages.
The Israeli military campaign that followed has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, destroyed many of its buildings and left most of the population homeless.
More hostages to be released
Thursday’s handover of bodies will be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians, expected to be women and minors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first phase of an agreement intended to open the way towards ending the war in Gaza.
So far 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thais who were returned in an unscheduled handover.
Negotiations for a second phase, expected to cover the return of around 60 remaining hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow an end to the war, are expected to begin in the coming days.