Palestinian terrorists and members of the Red Cross gather near vehicles on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

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.

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 terrorists in black and camouflage uniforms surrounded the area.

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.

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.

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

“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.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the defense establishment have faced criticism over the major security breach on Oct. 7, the country’s single deadliest day.

One terrorist 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. The poster read “The Return of the War=The Return of your Prisoners in Coffins.”

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 from Gaza.

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.

“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, a resident of Nir Oz, which lost around a quarter of its inhabitants, either killed or kidnapped, during the assault. “I still hope that they will be alive.”

Yarden Bibas was returned in an earlier exchange of hostages for prisoners this month. But the family said this week their “journey is not over” until they received final confirmation of what happened to the boys and their mother.

Some of those Israelis killed on Oct. 7 were known peace activists.

Lifshitz was 83 when he was abducted from Nir Oz, the kibbutz he helped found. His wife, Yocheved, 85 at the time, was seized with him and released two weeks later, along with another elderly woman.

He was a former journalist. In an op-ed he published in left-leaning Haaretz in Jan. 2019, titled “Defender of Israel He Is Not,” he questioned Netanyahu’s security credentials and criticized his policies, including on Hamas and Gaza.

Among what he listed as Netanyahu’s policy failures, Lifshitz noted his rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians and a 2011 deal that exchanged more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including hardliner Yahya Sinwar who would become Hamas’s leader in Gaza and the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, for one abducted Israeli soldier.

Israeli forces killed Sinwar during the Gaza war.

The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.

Netanyahu has faced criticism from his far-right coalition allies for agreeing to the deal, which some in Israel feel rewards Hamas and leaves the Palestinian terrorist group in place in Gaza.

But successive surveys have shown broad support among the public for the ceasefire.

Israel launched its war in the Gaza Strip after Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages. The Israeli military campaign aimed to free those who were abducted and dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

LIVING HOSTAGES

Thursday’s handover of bodies will 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.

So far 19 Israeli hostages have been released, as well as five Thais who were returned in an unscheduled handover.

Negotiations for a second phase, expected to cover the return of around 60 remaining hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow an end to the war, are expected to begin in the coming days.

The issue has also been clouded by US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be resettled outside Gaza, a move critics say would amount to ethnic cleansing, and for the enclave to be developed as a regional economic hub under US control.