Hamas hands over bodies of 4 Israeli hostages

TEL AVIV, Feb 20 (AFP): Militants on Thursday handed over the bodies of four hostages taken into Gaza during their October 7, 2023 attack, with Hamas saying they include the Bibas family-symbols of Israel's ordeal since the Gaza war began.

This is the first release of dead hostages under a fragile ceasefire which has so far seen only living captives exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The ceremony to return the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two young red-headed boys-Kfir and Ariel-and a fourth captive, Oded Lifshitz, 83 at the time of his capture, took place at a former cemetery in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

Israel has "received the caskets of four fallen hostages", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

"Our hearts-the hearts of the entire nation-lie in tatters," President Isaac Herzog said in a statement after the handover. He asked "forgiveness for not protecting you".

Flag-waving Israelis lined the route which a convoy carrying the bodies took from southern Israel to Tel Aviv following the transfer via the Red Cross.

Among those waiting at "Hostages Square" in Tel Aviv was museum manager Tania Coen Uzzielli, 59. "This is one of the hardest days, I think, since October 7th," she said, adding that "maybe we didn't do enough to prevent this tragedy."

Israel's military said the bodies would "undergo an identification procedure" at the city's national forensic medicine institute, where onlookers wept as the convoy arrived.

Ahead of the handover, Hamas and members of other armed Palestinian groups displayed four black coffins on a stage erected on the sandy patch of ground. A banner behind them depicted Netanyahu as a blood-stained vampire.

Each casket bore a small photo of the deceased. White mock-up missiles nearby carried the message: "They were killed by USA bombs," a reference to Israel's top military supplier.