The two tiny redheaded boys had captured the hearts of Israelis and became symbols of the long and emotional campaign for the release of the scores of hostages seized during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
On Thursday, under gray, stormy skies, an anguished nation marked an unofficial day of mourning after Hamas handed over three black coffins that the group said bore the remains of Ariel Bibas, who was only 4 when he was taken captive to the Gaza Strip; his baby brother, Kfir Bibas, who was not even 9 months old at the time; and their mother, Shiri Bibas, who was 32.
A fourth coffin bore the remains of Oded Lifshitz, an octogenarian grandfather, a peace activist and a founder of the pastoral Israeli village of Nir Oz, near the border with Gaza, where he and the Bibas family resided.
All were alive when taken.
At a grotesque handover ceremony in Gaza on Thursday morning, with loud music blaring in the background, the coffins were put on display on a podium bearing images from family photos that were also used in Israel for hostage posters: Ariel in a little white polo shirt; Kfir with a wide, toothless grin clutching a bright pink cuddly toy; and Shiri Bibas, smiling and radiant before the family’s world fell in.
The masked gunmen, though, appeared to have mixed up the children’s pictures and names.
By sundown on Thursday, Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine and the Israel police had still not completed the identification process of the remains. Only Mr. Lifshitz’s body had been positively identified.
Yarden Bibas, Ms. Bibas’s husband and the children’s father, was abducted separately during the Oct. 7 assault, bleeding from a head wound. He was released alive this month as part of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in January.
