UPDATED AT 6:51 P.M. EDT

The two Bibas babies who were kidnapped by Hamas with their mother on October 7, 2023, became a global symbol of the war. On Thursday, the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her boys — Ariel, who was 4 when abducted, and Kfir, who was 9 months old — were returned to Israel. Alongside was the coffin containing 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz. 

Late Thursday, though, an Israeli DNA examination confirmed that while the bodies of the two babies were in fact theirs, the one purported to be the mother, Shiri, was not. That dead body was someone else’s. The mix-up, intentional or not, further outraged Israelis, already incensed over a body handover that amounted to no more that a Hamas propaganda show. 

According to the IDF, the body that was supposed to be Shiri Bibas was not hers and “no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body.” 

Hamas is expected to release six living Israeli hostages Saturday, and additional dead bodies will be transferred next week. In exchange, hundreds of Arab prisoners, including terrorists who were arrested on October 7, are to be released. Large quantities of aid are to be admitted into the Strip too, including heavy earth-moving equipment, tents, and mobile homes to house northern Gazans who were displaced during the war. 

With that, the first phase of the cease-fire-for-hostages deal that was launched on January 19 will be completed. Negotiations over the next phase, which according to agreements could include the release of all remaining hostages and an official end to war, are only beginning. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu, though, “will try to extend the current phase,” the head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, Yossi Kuperwasser, tells the Sun. That would include the release of as many living hostages as possible in return for more aid into Gaza, he says, “but without any commitment for the day-after” following the end of the war.  

Israel is expected to approve a significant transfer of aid and equipment even as it is widely expected that Hamas will use it to reassert control over Gaza. “We can eliminate them later,” Mr. Kuperwasser, a former Israel Defense Force chief, says. The hostage deal, he adds, presents a dilemma: how to “square the circle” of Israel’s seemingly conflicting war goals. 

“We will return all of our hostages,“ Mr. Netanyahu insisted Thursday in a videotaped message, adding, though, that “we will destroy the murderers. We will eliminate Hamas. And together, with God’s help, we will ensure our future.” Yet, would Hamas release all hostages if it expects to be eliminated?

President Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into a “Mideast Riviera” while its residents are transferred somewhere else is meeting heavy Arab resistance. Egypt is said to have developed an alternative that would rebuild the Strip in five years or more, without relocation of Gazans. As of yet, though, Arab would-be donors to the plan, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are reportedly skeptical. 

The White House remains committed to Mr. Trump’s plan. “I’m not going to prenegotiate or get ahead of the sequencing of all that, it’s a very delicate situation,” the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told reporters Thursday.

The transfer of bodies on Thursday may have appalled even some around the world who might have been skeptical of the need to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza. The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, a consistent critic of Israel’s war conduct, described the handover as “abhorrent and cruel.”

To cheering crowds at Khan Younis, four coffins were laid on a stage backed by a poster depicting a vampire-like Mr. Netanayhu, blood dripping from his mouth onto a crude depiction of Shiri Bibas and her two babies. A representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross was on stage alongside face-masked Hamas officials.

To complete the cruel, meticulously staged transfer, Hamas handed over padlocked coffins to the ICRC, and then to IDF representatives. The Israelis then realized that the accompanying keys failed to unlock the coffins, which were examined to ensure they were free of explosives. 

The four murder victims were members of the Gaza-bordering Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community of left-leaning members of Israel’s peace camp. Lifshitz, a writer, was specifically known as a passionate advocate on behalf of suffering Gazans.  

“Oded was a great warrior for peace,” his wife, Yocheved, a former hostage who had been released in 2023, told Kan News. “He had very good relations with the Gazans, and what hurts me more than anything is that they betrayed him. They dragged him to hell after he had fought for them his entire life.”

The Bibas boys have headlined coverage of the hostage plight. Posters of the frightened mother, Shiri, who was photographed holding onto the two tots as kidnappers dragged them into Gaza, were ubiquitous around the world. 

While many Israelis have long suspected that the red-headed boys were murdered — the IDF now confirms that they were killed in November 2023 — the shock and sadness over their return in coffins was compounded by Hamas’s macabre display Thursday. Their father, Yarden Bibas, who was released February 1, and the rest of his family now will at least be able to mourn them as they lay in Israeli graves.