Hamas returned on Thursday the bodies of four Israeli hostages, including the two youngest captives seized in its October 7 attack on Israel.
The Palestinian militants said the bodies of infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, along with their mother Shiri Bibas, were be handed over on Thursday under the ceasefire agreement reached last month.
The fourth body was said to be that of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he and his wife Yocheved were taken captive by Hamas during the militants’ cross-border incursion which sparked the war in Gaza 15 months ago.
Kfir was just nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden – who was returned to Israel in a hostage exchange earlier this month – was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, a settlement near the Gaza border.
Hamas claimed in November 2023 that the family had been killed by Israeli airstrikes. But their deaths have never been confirmed by the Israeli authorities, and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.
“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, around a quarter of whose inhabitants were either killed or kidnapped on 7 October 2023.
Following Yarden’s release earlier this month, the family had warned that their “journey is not over” until they receive final confirmation of what happened to the boys and their mother.
First return of Israeli dead hostages by Hamas
Today’s handover marked the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement, brokered with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
Hundreds of people gathered ahead of the bodies being released, as armed militants in black and camouflage uniforms toured the area ahead of their handover to the Red Cross.
Israeli 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”.
Thursday’s handover is due to 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 toward ending the war in Gaza.
So far 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thai nationals who were returned in an unscheduled handover.