Hamas hands over dead Israeli hostages in black coffins

Hundreds watched on Thursday as four black coffins, which Hamas said held the remains of Israel's Bibas family and an elderly hostage, were carried off stage by Palestinian militants in southern Gaza.

The ceremony, held on a sandy area that was once a cemetery before its destruction by Israeli forces, marked the first handover of deceased captives under a fragile Israel-Hamas truce.

It began with a militant, his face wrapped in a red and white keffiyeh scarf, seated on the stage to complete paperwork with a Red Cross official. The stage featured a banner with an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodied vampire over photos of the four returned Israelis.

"War Criminal Netanyahu and his army killed them with missiles and Zionist warplanes", read the sign.

The coffins -- which bore photos of the deceased as well as of Netanyahu -- were placed one by one into separate Red Cross vehicles after being covered in a white shroud as a cold drizzle fell.

Photographers and videographers wearing Hamas headbands walked around, cameras in hand, to capture the moment.

Hamas said it was returning the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel and Kfir -- who at only nine months old was the youngest hostage taken during Hamas' unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.

The fourth hostage was Oded Lifshitz, 83 at the time of his capture.

- Destroyed cemetery -

"We preserved the lives of the occupation prisoners (hostages), provided them with what we could, and treated them humanely, but their army killed them along with their captors," the Islamist movement said in a statement.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, in a statement released after Hamas handed over the bodies to the Red Cross, "our hearts -- the hearts of the entire nation -- lie in tatters".

Armed men in military fatigues and wearing Hamas green headbands were ubiquitous on the lot which was cleared for the transfer. They stood around the stage and lined up on both sides of the road where the Red Cross vehicles passed.

"The dead were respected despite the occupation's humiliation of prisoners and martyrs," Said Ubade, 32, told AFP, after the Red Cross called for the "dignified and private" transfer of hostages and prisoners after a swap last weekend.

"I thank the resistance for fulfilling its promise and safeguarding the captives and bodies until our prisoners are freed," Ubade said.

Hamas set up its stage in the Bani Suheila cemetery, east of Khan Yunis, where dozens of members of its armed Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades, and the Mujahideen Brigade had gathered.

A Hamas source said the site was chosen in part because the Israeli army destroyed the cemetery during the war, exhuming hundreds of graves and transferring dozens of bodies for examination inside Israel before returning most of them.

Abu Bilal, spokesman for the Mujahideen Brigade told AFP that his group "completed all arrangements for the handover of the remains of three bodies from the Bibas family", suggesting the lesser-known militants had held the three relatives.

Before and after the transfer, Hamas fighters paraded, holding their weapons aloft, while the crowd looked on, surrounded by the remnants of buildings bombed during more than 15 months of war.

Below the stage, the slogan "We never forgave nor forgot, Al-Aqsa Flood was our promise" could be read.

The message was a response to a message Israel's Prison Service printed on the uniforms of the Palestinian prisoners it freed last Saturday.

"We don't forgive and we don't forget," the Israeli message had said.

Among the weapons Hamas fighters displayed to suggest their brigades remained intact were dozens of Kalashnikovs, M-16 rifles and a few hand-held grenade launchers.

Large speakers blasted chants, as children and youth pressed themselves around a table where fighters displayed a large automatic rifle and its long ammunition belt, as well as anti-tank mines.

© Agence France-Presse