Hamas handed over the bodies of Israeli infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in their October 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.

'The saddest day': Tearful Israelis gather in Tel Aviv as Hamas releases bodies of youngest hostages. – Reuters

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

United Nations rights chief Volker Turk 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.

Coffins are placed on stage during the handover. – Reuters

After the hostages were handed over by the Red Cross, the coffins were scanned for explosives, according to the military.

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.

Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by.

"We stand here together, with a broken heart, the sky is also crying with us and we pray to see better days," said one woman, who gave her name only as Efrat.

In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, at what has come to be known as Hostages Square outside Israel's defence headquarters.

"Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts – the hearts of an entire nation – lie in tatters," said 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."

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

In Gaza, as the bodies were handed over, militants 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".

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

'Symbol' 

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. Video shot that day showed a terrified Shiri swaddling the two boys as militants led them into Gaza.

Relatives in Israel had clung to hope, marking Kfir's first and second birthdays and his brother's fifth.

Supporters throughout Israel have worn orange in solidarity with the family – a reference to two boys' red hair – and a popular children's song was written in their honour.

Israelis line convoy route route near Gaza border. – AP 

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.

"Shiri and the kids became a symbol," said Yiftach Cohen, of the Nir Oz kibbutz, which lost around a quarter of its residents, either killed or kidnapped, during the assault.

Yarden Bibas was returned in an exchange for prisoners this month.

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

The convoy carrying the coffins of four Israeli hostages arrives in Tel Aviv. – AP

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 woman.

He was a former journalist and in an op-ed in left-leaning Haaretz in January 2019, he listed what he said were Netanyahu's policy failures, including his rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians and a 2011 deal that exchanged more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners – including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attack – for one abducted Israeli soldier.

Living hostages 

The handover marks the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement.

Lifschitz's family later said that they had been informed that his body had been formally 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."

"Our family's healing process will begin now and will not end until the last hostage is returned." 

The Hamas-led attack into Israel killed some 1200 people, according to Israeli tallies, with 251 kidnapped. Israel's subsequent military campaign has killed some 48,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say, and left densely populated Gaza in ruins.

The 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.

Kfir Bibas. – file

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. 

Ariel Bibas. – file

The negotiations are 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.  

The talks are expected to begin in the coming days.