The coffins of four hostages who lost their lives have now been transported to Israel, police report. They are being accompanied by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for official identification.

Once the identification process is complete, the IDF and ISA will promptly inform the families of the deceased, as highlighted in their joint statement released overnight.

Earlier, Hamas announced it would be returning the bodies of hostages Daniel Peretz, Yossi Sharabi, Guy Illouz, and Bipin Joshi on Monday, local time.

Before crossing into Israeli territory, the IDF soldiers staged a ceremony in which they draped the hostages’ coffins with Israeli flags, saluted them, and recited a chapter from the Book of Psalms, according to their statement.

Traditionally, when bodies are repatriated, a DNA analysis is conducted to verify the identities of the individuals.

While the hostage families did not expect all of the bodies to return on Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said previously it had been “were shocked and dismayed” by the news only four would be released.

Under the agreement brokered by the US, Hamas and its allies were meant to release all of the remaining hostages, alive and dead, within 72 hours of the ceasefire being announced.

However, CNN reported last week that Israel assessed that Hamas may not be able to find and return all the remaining dead hostages in Gaza.

An international committee will help locate the bodies that Hamas may be unable to find, Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday.

It is unclear what that taskforce will look like at this time.

“The Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) insists that we will act to locate all of these hostages as soon as possible, and we will do that as a sacred duty of communal responsibility,” Bedrosian said.