Hamas returns bodies of 4 Israeli hostages, including 2 children, held in Gaza

Hamas handed over the bodies on Thursday of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother, Ariel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack and among the most potent symbols of the trauma inflicted that day.

Hamas handed over the bodies of the two boys and their mother, Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.

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.

Armed Hamas militants in black and camouflage uniforms surrounded the area.

United Nations rights chief Volker Türk called the parading of bodies in Gaza abhorrent and cruel and said it flew in the face of international law.

"Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families," he said in a statement.

After the hostages were handed over by the Red Cross, the coffins were scanned for explosives, according to the military. The coffins of the four deceased hostages have been transported into Israel, the Israeli military said.

"Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts, the hearts of an entire nation, lie in tatters," said Israel's President Isaac Herzog.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was "united in unbearable grief" and vowed to "eliminate" Hamas.

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. 

At the handover site, a large poster was hung up, depicting Netanyahu as a vampire and characterizing him as a war criminal.

Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers.

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.