Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Culture editor Jessica Steinberg joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today’s episode.

Steinberg, who has covered hostages’ families and their struggle to bring home their loved ones from Gaza for the past two years, relates several anecdotes of reunions and other moving moments. We hear about several favorite performing artists giving personal performances to their freshly freed fans and about a pair of prankster brothers.

More from The Daily Briefing

At recording time, a total of seven of the eight hostage bodies returned by Hamas over the past two days have been identified. They are named as: Yossi Sharabi, Cpt. Daniel Perez, Bipin Joshi, Guy Illouz, Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi, and Eitan Levy. A fourth body transferred last night does not belong to a hostage, according to the IDF. We hear about the bereaved families who are again ramping up the protests to close the circle on this painful chapter.

Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.

4 bodies, purportedly of unnamed hostages, return to Israel after threat to limit aid

‘Coming back to life’: Freed hostages’ families give updates, thanks; some snub PM

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Podwaves.