Israelis mourned the family that symbolised the trauma their country suffered in the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, as the Palestinian group agreed to free the last hostage bodies included in the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

Hamas said the bodies of Tsachi Idan, Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur would be released on Wednesday night and added that a hospital in Gaza was preparing to receive Palestinian prisoners who would be released in exchange.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said an agreement was reached for the handover of the bodies of four deceased hostages but it did not name them.

The resolution came on the same day as 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.

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The youngest hostages seized during the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, were killed weeks after they were abducted into the Gaza Strip.

Israel says it has intelligence and forensic evidence that shows the boys and their mother were killed by their captors using their bare hands.

Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Thousands of people, some in tears, carrying blue and white Israeli flags or photographs of the family, walked in the procession or waited as a convoy bearing the coffins drove past.