Israel braces 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, Reuters says.

The bodies of their two boys and their mother Shiri Bibas, along with that of a fourth hostage, Oded Lifschitz, would be handed over today under the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza on October 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.

“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 October 7 assault. “I still hope that they will be alive.”

Yarden, the father, 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.

The handover will be the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement and Israel is not expected to confirm their identities until full DNA checks have been completed.