The remains were said 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 said all four were killed along with their guards in Israeli airstrikes.
"Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. “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 terrorists 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 terrorists, 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. Only then will the families be given the final notification.
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.
