The families of the four likely dead hostages slated to be returned to Israel on Thursday appeared to cling to hope on Wednesday evening after the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that it had received the list of the first four deceased captives that Hamas would be returning under the terms of the ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The four were named as Oded Lifshitz, and Shiri Silberman Bibas and her two young sons Ariel Bibas and Kfir Bibas, who were just 4 years and 9 months old, respectively, when they were abducted from their home on October 7, 2023.

The bodies of the slain hostages were set to be handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross on Thursday morning, and from there to be transferred to Israeli forces inside the Gaza Strip.

The IDF has said that it will hold a respectful ceremony in Gaza, with a rabbi present, upon receiving the bodies. They will be placed in coffins draped in Israeli flags and carried by Israeli troops into IDF vehicles.

From there, they will be taken to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification, a process that could take up to 48 hours.

“These hours are not easy for us,” the family of Oded Lifshitz, aged 83 at the time of his kidnapping, said after receiving the news. “For 502 days, we hoped and prayed for a different ending.”

“Until we receive absolute certainty, our journey will not end,” the family said, alluding to the lengthy identification process ahead. “And even after that, we will continue to fight until the last hostage is returned.”

Speaking to the Ynet news outlet on Wednesday evening, Yizhar Lifshitz, Oded’s son, acknowledged that everything pointed toward his father’s body being returned tomorrow, but said that until it happens, and “until we are certain they didn’t make some mistake, only then will we receive the answer and that will be it.”

He told the news outlet that the little information he received about his father’s initial weeks in captivity has left him feeling that “as his son, I would have preferred to know that he was murdered on October 7, outside his home in Nir Oz, rather than having to go through all this suffering and torture and be alone and die like a dog there in Gaza.”

“His life ended in a tragic and humiliating, underserved and degrading way,” Yizhar said. “His home was burned down, his wife was kidnapped, having been beaten, which he must have seen… [he died] without family, without children, without closure.”

Lifshitz and his wife Yocheved were taken hostage separately from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of the October 7 onslaught.

Yocheved was freed on October 23, 2023, along with fellow captive Nurit Cooper, and was not held with Oded while in Gaza.

The........

© The Times of Israel