TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation’s agony following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

The return of the dead. It began, as all the handovers so far have begun, with a politically charged display by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups involved in holding Israeli hostages for over 500 days.