Militants on Thursday handed over the bodies of four hostages taken into Gaza during their October 7, 2023 attack, with Hamas saying they include the Bibas family – symbols of Israel's ordeal since the Gaza war began.
This is the first release of dead hostages under a fragile ceasefire which has so far seen only living captives exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The ceremony to return the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two young red-headed boys – Kfir and Ariel – and a fourth captive, Oded Lifshitz, 83 at the time of his capture, took place at a former cemetery in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.
Young Kfir and Ariel were dual Israel-Argentine citizens.
Israel has "received the caskets of four fallen hostages," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.
"Our hearts – the hearts of the entire nation – lie in tatters," President Isaac Herzog said in a statement after the handover. He asked "forgiveness for not protecting you."
Flag-waving Israelis lined the route which a convoy carrying the bodies took from southern Israel to Tel Aviv following the transfer via the Red Cross.
Among those waiting at "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv was museum manager Tania Coen Uzzielli, 59.
"This is one of the hardest days, I think, since October 7," she said, adding that "maybe we didn't do enough to prevent this tragedy."
Israel's military said the bodies would "undergo an identification procedure" at the city's national forensic medicine institute, where onlookers wept as the convoy arrived.
Ahead of the handover, Hamas and members of other armed Palestinian groups displayed four black coffins on a stage erected on the sandy patch of ground. A banner behind them depicted Netanyahu as a blood-stained vampire.
Each casket bore a small photo of the deceased. White mock-up missiles nearby carried the message: "They were killed by USA bombs," a reference to Israel's top military supplier.
The youngest hostage
Under a cold drizzle, a militant with his face wrapped in a red and white keffiyeh scarf sat on the stage to complete documents with a Red Cross official.
The coffins were loaded into Red Cross vehicles.
Tahani Fayad, 40, was among the hundreds of people gathered to witness the ceremony which he called "a confirmation of the victory of the Palestinian people and proof that the occupation will not defeat us."
Buildings bombed during more than 15 months of war surrounded the site.
Armed men in military fatigues and wearing Hamas headbands were ubiquitous at the ceremony – carefully choreographed as in previous hostage transfers.
During their attack that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas filmed and later broadcast footage showing the Bibas family's abduction from their home near the Gaza border.
Ariel was then aged four. Kfir was the youngest hostage at just nine months old.
Yarden Bibas, the boys' father and Shiri's husband, was abducted separately and released in a previous hostage-prisoner swap on February 1.
The bodies' repatriation is part of the six-week initial phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19.
Under the first phase, militants have so far freed 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
Of the remaining 14 Gaza hostages eligible for release under phase one, Israel says eight are dead.
Under strain
Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed the Bibas family early in the war but Israel has never confirmed the claim.
Hamas and its armed wing "did everything in their power to protect the prisoners [hostages] and preserve their lives, but the barbaric and continuous bombing by the occupation prevented them from being able to save all," the militants said in a statement.
Israel and Hamas announced a deal earlier this week for the return of eight hostages' remains in two groups this week and next, as well as the release of six living Israeli captives on Saturday.
Palestinian prisoners are also to be freed in Saturday's swap but were not part of Thursday's handover.
The ceasefire in Gaza has held despite accusations of violations on both sides.
It has also been under strain from US President Donald Trump's widely condemned idea to take control of rubble-strewn Gaza and relocate its population of more than two million Palestinians.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said talks will begin this week on the truce's second phase, aiming to lay out a more permanent end to the war.
Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Wednesday that Hamas was ready to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during phase two.
Hamas and its allies took 251 people captive during their attack. Prior to Thursday's handover, there were 70 hostages in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,297 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
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by Michael Blum & Benoit Finck, AFP
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