Israel prepares to receive bodies of youngest Gaza hostages

Israel prepares for return of bodies of infant Kfir Bibas and brother Ariel under Gaza ceasefire, facing political criticism.

Israel braced on Thursday for the return of the bodies of 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.

Palestinian militant groups said the bodies of the two boys and their mother Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, would be handed over on Thursday under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief video statement that Thursday would be "a very difficult day for the state of Israel. An upsetting day, a day of grief."

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 was overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza on Oct. 7.

Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but the 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 Oct. 7 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.