KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — In a somber turn of events, Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including a mother and her two children who had long been feared dead. The remains were presumed 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 9 months old when he was taken, was the youngest captive.

Hamas has stated that all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes. Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed the nation’s grief, saying, “Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters. On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.”

The militants displayed four black coffins on a stage in the Gaza Strip, surrounded by banners, including a large one depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire. Thousands of people, including large numbers of masked and armed militants, looked on as the coffins were loaded onto Red Cross vehicles before being driven to Israeli forces.

The military held a small funeral ceremony, at the request of the families, before transferring the bodies to a laboratory in Israel for formal identification using DNA, a process that could take up to two days. Lifshitz’ family later confirmed his remains had been officially identified. “We had hoped and prayed so much for a different outcome,” they said in a statement. “Now we can mourn the husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who has been missing from us since October 7.”

Israelis have celebrated the return of 24 living hostages in recent weeks under a tenuous ceasefire that paused over 15 months of war. But the handover on Thursday was a grim reminder of those who died in captivity as the talks leading up to the truce dragged on for over a year. It could also provide impetus for negotiations on the second stage of the ceasefire that have hardly begun. The first phase is set to end at the beginning of March.

Infant was the youngest taken hostage

Kfir Bibas was just 9 months old, a red-headed infant with a toothless smile, when militants stormed into the family’s home on Oct. 7, 2023. His brother Ariel was 4. Video shot that day showed a terrified Shiri swaddling the two boys as militants led them into Gaza. Her husband, Yarden Bibas, was taken separately and released this month after 16 months in captivity.

Relatives in Israel have clung to hope, marking Kfir’s first and second birthdays and his brother’s fifth. The Bibas family said in a statement Wednesday that it would wait for “identification procedures” before acknowledging that their loved ones were dead. Supporters throughout Israel have worn orange in solidarity with the family — a reference to the two boys’ red hair — and a popular children’s song was written in their honor.

Like the Bibas family, Oded Lifshitz was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his wife Yocheved, who was freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Oded was a journalist who campaigned for the recognition of Palestinian rights and peace between Arabs and Jews.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 hostages, including some 30 children, in the Oct. 7 attack, in which they also killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than half the hostages, and most of the women and children, have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight and have recovered dozens of bodies of people killed in the initial attack or who died in captivity.

It’s not clear if the ceasefire will last

Hamas is set to free six living hostages on Saturday in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and says it will release four more bodies next week, completing the ceasefire’s first phase. That will leave the militants with some 60 hostages, all men, around half of whom are believed to be dead.

Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu, with the full backing of the Trump administration, says he is committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capacities and returning all the hostages, goals widely seen as mutually exclusive.

Trump’s proposal to remove some 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so the U.S. can own and rebuild it, which has been welcomed by Netanyahu but universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, has thrown the ceasefire into further doubt. Hamas could be reluctant to free more hostages if it believes the war will resume with the goal of annihilating the group or forcibly transferring Gaza’s population.

Israel’s military offensive killed over 48,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence. The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza, reducing entire neighborhoods to fields of rubble and bombed-out buildings. At its height, the war displaced 90% of Gaza’s population. Many have returned to their homes to find nothing left and no way of rebuilding.