The Israeli settlement of Nir Oz had earlier Saturday announced Bibas's death, after the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had transferred more human remains to Israeli authorities without saying whose they were.

"After the identification process at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, this morning we received the news we feared the most," the Bibas family said in a statement on Instagram.

"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."

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

While the remains of her two sons and the elderly captive were identified positively, Israeli authorities said the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas.

But on Friday, Hamas handed over new remains to the Red Cross, which have now been identified as those of Shiri Bibas. The group had earlier cited a possible “mix-up” of bodies in the rubble of an Israeli airstrike.

Hamas has long maintained that an Israeli airstrike killed Bibas and her two sons, Kfir and Ariel, early in the war.

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