Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages to the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, as seen in a live broadcast from Khan Younis on Thursday morning.

The Palestinian militant group had set up a stage at the handover site, where numerous cheering onlookers gathered alongside dozens of hooded and masked militants in uniform.

Four black coffins were displayed on the stage, with a backdrop depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodied vampire hovering over images of the four deceased hostages.

“The war criminal Netanyahu and his army killed them with rockets from Zionist fighter jets,” read the text next to the images. An Israeli TV presenter described the scene as a “theatre of terror.”

According to Hamas, the deceased include a mother and her two young sons: Shiri Bibas and her boys, Ariel and Kfir.

Israel plans to verify their identities once the bodies are returned. This marks the first time that the remains of Israeli victims have been handed over since the start of the Gaza war, following the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli army has previously recovered several hostage bodies from the Gaza Strip and brought them back to Israel.

Hamas claims that the three Bibas family members were killed in Israeli airstrikes during the early months of the war.

|DPA