Hamas says hands over bodies of Israel's Bibas family, elderly hostage

KHAN YUNIS, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — Militants on Thursday handed over the bodies of four hostages taken into Gaza during their October 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 under which living hostages have been exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The ceremony to return the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two young 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.

Israel has "received the caskets of four fallen hostages", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said, before the military confirmed a convoy with the bodies had entered Israel.

Flag-waving Israelis stood beside the road as a brisk wind blew near Kissufim, southern Israel, waiting for the vehicles to pass following the handover via the Red Cross.

Crowds also gathered in Tel Aviv, AFPTV images showed.

Israel's military said the bodies would "undergo an identification procedure" at the national forensic medicine institute.

Ahead of the handover, Hamas 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. An armed militant stood nearby.

Each casket bore a small photo of each of the deceased. White mock-up missiles placed near the coffins carried the message: "They were killed by USA bombs," a reference to Israel's top military supplier.

A militant, his face wrapped in a red and white keffiyeh scarf, sat on the stage to complete documents with a Red Cross official before 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".

Armed men in military fatigues and wearing Hamas headbands were ubiquitous, standing near the stage for the carefully choreographed ceremony, as in previous hostage transfers.

During their October 7, 2023 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 and Kfir 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.