The end of a days-long standoff over the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners was announced on Wednesday as Israel prepared for the funeral of the Bibas family following the handover of the bodies of nine-month-old Kfir Bibas, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri last week.
The youngest hostages seized during the attack on Israel by gunmen from Hamas on October 7, 2023 were killed weeks after they were abducted into the Gaza Strip.
Hamas says the boys and their mother were killed in an Israeli air strike but Israel says it has intelligence and forensic evidence that shows they were killed by their captors using their bare hands.
Thousands of people, some in tears, carrying blue and white Israeli flags or photographs of the family, walked in procession or waited as a convoy bearing the coffins passed on their way to the funeral.Â
Many were carrying orange balloons, a new symbol of mourning for the hostages, matching the red hair of the two Bibas boys.
"It's still not really registering," said Tal Ben Shimon, a Tel Aviv resident who joined mourners at the open air space that has become known as Hostage Square for the regular rallies of hostage families and their supporters that have gathered there since the start of the Gaza Strip war.
"They kind of represent all the families, the very young families, who were slaughtered on that day."
Yarden Bibas, the father of the boys, who was captured separately from his family and released during an exchange of hostages and prisoners earlier this month, paid tribute in an emotional eulogy at their funeral.
"I hope you know I thought about you every day, every minute," he said in an address carried live on Israeli television.
For Israelis, the Bibas family has become an emblem of the trauma that has haunted their country since the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel in which 1200 people were killed and 251 were taken back to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
Israel's air and ground war in the Palestinian territory in response has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians and destroyed most of the coastal enclave but fighting has stopped since the fragile ceasefire agreement brokered by Egyptian and Qatari mediators last month.
Under the deal, Hamas agreed to hand over 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip as well as a massive influx of aid.
On Wednesday, Egyptian mediators confirmed they had secured a breakthrough that should allow the handover of the final four hostage bodies due in the first phase of the deal this week after a days-long impasse.
Hamas confirmed that an agreement had been reached for the exchange of hostages for prisoners but said their release would be conducted under a new mechanism.
Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, a Gaza-based militant group allied to Hamas, said on its Telegram channel that it would release the body of hostage Ohad Yahalomi on Thursday.
It was not clear when the three other bodies would be delivered.
With the 42-day truce due to expire on Saturday, it also remains unclear whether an extension will be agreed or whether negotiations can begin on a second stage of the deal, which would result in the release of the final 59 hostages left in the Gaza Strip.
Despite numerous hiccups, the ceasefire deal has so far held up but moving to a second phase would require agreements on issues that have proved impossible to bridge in the past, including the postwar future of the Gaza Strip and Hamas, which Israel has vowed to eliminate as a governing force.
