A furious Israel says one of the bodies returned by Hamas on Friday is not a woman who was taken hostage with her young children.

Hamas purportedly handed over the bodies of infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, their mother Shiri Bibas, and a fourth man, Oded Lifshitz, in a transfer blasted as “abhorrent and cruel” by the United Nations’ human rights chief.

They were transferred in a carefully orchestrated public display on Friday (AEDT) as a crowd of Palestinians and dozens of armed Hamas militants watched.

Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by, taking the bodies to Israel’s national forensics institute for formal identification.

But later on Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces said testing had shown the body said to be Shiri Bibas was not her – and did not match any other Israeli hostage.

“This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” it said.

“We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”

It said the army had notified their family, including Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and father of the two boys, who was released in early February as part of the ceasefire deal.

“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages,” the IDF said.

Following the IDF announcement, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, called for condemnation of the “Hamas’ barbarity”.

“There are no words that can describe such an atrocity. Hamas not only murdered Ariel and Kfir Bibas in cold blood – a four-year-old boy and a 10-month-old baby – but continues to violate every basic moral value even after their death,” Danon said.

“Instead of returning Shiri, the mother of Kfir and Ariel, Hamas returned an unidentified body, as if it were a worthless shipment. This is a new low, an evil and cruelty with no parallel.”

Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers.

Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Their deaths were not confirmed by Israeli authorities.

Lifshitz was 83 when he was abducted from Nir Oz, the kibbutz he helped found. His wife, Yocheved, 85 at the time, was seized with him and released two weeks later, along with another woman.

The Bibas family, and Kfir in particular, have become one of the most recognisable victims of the October 7, 2023, terror attacks.

In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, in a public square opposite Israel’s defence headquarters that has come to be known as Hostages Square.

“Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts – the hearts of an entire nation – lie in tatters,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said.

In a recorded address released after the remains were handed over, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas, saying “the four coffins” obliged Israel to ensure “more than ever” that there was no repeat of the October 7 attack.

“Our loved ones’ blood is shouting at us from the soil and is obliging us to settle the score with the despicable murderers, and we will,” he said.

Throughout the 16-month-old conflict, Israeli officials have repeatedly asserted that Hamas would be destroyed and the roughly 250 hostages abducted during the 2023 Hamas-led attack would be returned home.

Netanyahu said international law required remains to be handed over in a way that ensured “respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families”.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned “the parading of bodies and displaying of the coffins of the deceased hostages in the manner seen this morning, which is abhorrent and appalling”, his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said.

Lifshitz’s family later said in a statement that they had been informed that his body had been formally identified

Netanyahu’s office said Lifshitz was murdered in captivity by Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza.

Chen Kugel, the head of the Israel National Center of Forensic Medicine, later said in a televised statement that Lifshitz had been murdered more than a year ago.

The Hamas-led attack into Israel killed some 1200 people, according to Israeli tallies, with 251 kidnapped. Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed some 48,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say, and Gaza in ruins.

Friday’s handover was to followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians.

The IDF said those plans had not changed, despite the latest development.

Negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire, expected to cover the return of about 60 remaining hostages, fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, are expected to begin soon.

-with AAP