Every day this week, Jonathan Dekel-Chen has experienced a combination of delight and pain. He is celebrating the homecoming of his son Sagui, who was released over the weekend as part of a cease-fire agreement with Hamas. However, the memories of Sagui’s experience, as well as the plight of the surviving captives, are difficult to forget.

“Today is a day with very mixed feelings,” Mr. Dekel-Chen said in an interview on Thursday.

He had just visited his son in a Tel Aviv-area hospital on a day when Hamas turned over coffins containing the corpses of four of Mr. Dekel-Chen’s neighbors in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where almost a fifth of the 400 people were slain or kidnapped on October 7, 2023.

It’s been 504 days since the Hamas-led raid, and about 60 captives have yet to return home. “We need to double down now on getting all of the hostages home,” Mr. Dekel-Chen stated. The four bodies retrieved on Thursday were claimed to be three members of the Bibas family: Ariel Bibas, four, and Kfir Bibas, ten months old, as well as their mother, Shiri Bibas. The Bibases became symbols of the hostages’ misery as footage of their transport to Gaza went viral.

However, the Israeli military revealed early Friday that the remains in what was claimed to be Ms. Bibas’ casket did not match the identities of any of the captives. “This is an extremely serious violation,” the military stated.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, the authorities confirmed the remains of the children as well as Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 years old when he was executed in custody by the extremist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Hostages will be turned over in Khan Younis, Gaza, this month as part of a hostage and prisoner exchange. Credit… Saher Alghorra for the New York Times.

Mr. Lifshitz, a retired journalist, was apprehended alongside his wife, Yocheved Lifshitz, who was freed weeks later for “humanitarian and health reasons.”

She has revealed mistreatment and frightening circumstances in Hamas’ underground tunnels, saying that additional prisoners would be unable to tolerate them.

Before the war, Mr. Lifshitz volunteered to take Gazans seeking medical care to Israeli hospitals and was a founding member of a Peace Now chapter that advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Mr. Dekel-Chen, who had known Mr. Lifshitz for decades, said he “was a man truly committed to his values.”

Thousands of Israelis gathered on Thursday night in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square to pay respect to Mr. Lifshitz and the other captives. They were also there to put pressure on the Israeli government to free those who were still detained.

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