Hamas releases bodies of four Israelis held captive in Gaza

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Hamas said all four, including two children, were killed in Israeli air attack on Gaza.

Hamas has released the bodies of a woman, her two children and an 83-year-old Israeli man who were taken captive during the October 2023 attack.

The bodies were handed over to the ICRC in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Thursday. Four men carried the four coffins from the stage to the Red Cross vehicles one at a time.

A large poster acting as the backdrop on the stage showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fangs and blood on his face, dripping onto the photos of the four Israelis whose bodies were released.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian group said all four were alive before the “Zionist occupation aircraft deliberately bombed the locations where they were being held”.

The return of the bodies is part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that will also see hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli jails where a number of them have been kept in detention without any charge or trial.

A Palestinian group said Israel is withholding the remains of at least 665 Palestinians, including several killed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Khan Younis, said “the site is symbolic for Palestinians because it was a central site for Israeli ground forces during the military operations in the city”.

“Preparations started in the early hours of the morning. There are masked fighters with green bands on their heads, armed with rifles and holding different signs with slogans,” he said. “The stage was well prepared with three main banners. One of them talks about the crimes committed by the Israeli forces during their operations in Gaza.”

The bodies that have been handed over included Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, their mother Shiri Bibas, along with a fourth captive, Oded Lifschitz.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli author and political analyst, said the return of the bodies marks a “very sad day for all of us”.

“These babies became the symbol of I would say Israeli stupidity, fool attitude of the Israeli government,” Eldar told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.

He said Netanyahu is well aware of the poor conditions of the Israeli captives.

“But he has other priorities,” said Eldar.

“It’s kind of a race between the families who are hoping to see their loved ones back home, and Netanyahu who is desiring to keep his government as long as he can and to buy more time and buy the support of the people on the radical right that believe that land is more precious than the lives of people,” he said.