Many Israelis went to sleep last night believing that the bodies of Shiri Bibas, and her two children Ariel and Kfir, were after 503 days home at last — until forensic testing confirmed that the body believed to be Shiri’s was not.

Testing confirmed the identities of Ariel and Kfir, who were murdered in November 2023, weeks after they were snatched from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Ariel was four. Kfir would have been ten months old (he was captured when he was about nine months old). Hamas paraded the boys’ bodies around Gaza on Thursday in a sick, celebratory display.

But the body Hamas claimed was Shiri’s was “an anonymous, unidentified body,” the military said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that the body was that of a “Gazan woman.”

Hamas will “examine these claims with complete seriousness,” the group announced in a statement, adding that “we also point out the possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies, which may have resulted from the occupation targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians.” Hamas is also demanding that Israel return the body of the Palestinian woman Israel says it was given.

Hamas carried around the remains of a four-year-old child and a ten-month-old baby for longer than a year. It’s difficult to believe that terrorists who can maniacally keep track of a baby’s remains can somehow misplace, or mix up, Shiri’s remains.

Where is Shiri?