“Despite our fears for their fate, we kept hoping we would get to hug them again, and now we are broken and grieving.

“For 16 months, we sought certainty, and now that we have it, there is no comfort in it, but we hope for the beginning of a closure,” the family said in a statement on Instagram.

On Thursday, Hamas handed over four bodies, saying they were of Shiri Bibas, her two young sons, and an elderly hostage.

While the remains of her two sons and the elderly hostage were identified positively, Israeli authorities said the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas, sparking anger and grief across the country.

But on Friday, Hamas – which blamed a possible “mix-up” of bodies – handed over new remains to the Red Cross, which now have been identified to be that of Shiri Bibas.

Hamas has long maintained an Israeli airstrike killed Bibas and her boys – Kfir and Ariel – early in the war.

The Bibas family became symbols of the hostage ordeal suffered by Israel since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.

– Agence France-Presse