Israelis mourned the family that symbolised the trauma their country suffered in the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, as the Palestinian militant group agreed to free the last hostage bodies included in the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
Hamas said the bodies of Tsachi Idan, Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur would be released on Wednesday night (local time) and added that a hospital in Gaza was preparing to receive Palestinian prisoners who would be released in exchange.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said an agreement was reached for the handover of bodies of four deceased hostages, but it did not name them.
The resolution came on the same day as the funeral of the Bibas family following the handover of the bodies of nine-month-old Kfir Bibas, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri last week.
The youngest hostages seized during the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023 were killed weeks after they were abducted into the Gaza Strip.
Israel said it has intelligence and forensic evidence that shows the boys and their mother were killed by their captors using their bare hands. Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Thousands of people, some in tears, carrying blue and white Israeli flags or photographs of the family, walked in procession or waited as a convoy bearing the coffins drove past. Many were carrying orange balloons, a symbol of mourning for the hostages, matching the red hair of the two Bibas boys.
“It’s still not really registering,” said Tal Ben-Shimon, a who joined mourners at what has come to be known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.
“They kind of represent all the families, the very young families, who were slaughtered on that day.”
Yarden Bibas, the father of the boys, who was captured separately from his family and released earlier this month, paid tribute in an emotional eulogy at their funeral.
“I hope you know I thought about you every day, every minute,” he said in an address carried live on Israeli television.
For Israelis, the Bibas family has become an emblem of the trauma that has haunted their country since the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza in response has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians and destroyed most of the coastal enclave, but fighting has stopped since the last month.
Under the deal, Hamas agreed to hand over 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from some of their positions in Gaza as well as an influx of aid.
On Wednesday, Egyptian mediators confirmed they had secured a breakthrough that should allow the handover of the final four hostage bodies due in the first phase of the deal this week after a days-long impasse.
Hamas confirmed that an agreement had been reached for the exchange of hostages for prisoners, that would be conducted under a new mechanism.
With the 42-day truce due to expire on Saturday, it remains unclear whether an extension will be agreed or whether negotiations can begin on a second stage of the deal, which would see the release of the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza.
