By Hannah Pantos

The bodies of Kfir Bibas, Ariel Bibas and Oded Lifshitz were returned to Israel more than 500 days after they were taken hostage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed. Hamas, though, was not finished disrespecting and using the hostages.

Instead of sending the body of Shiri Bibas in the coffin bearing her name and photo, Hamas handed Israel an unidentified body. The IDF said the DNA of the body in the coffin does not match any other known hostage.

In a display of brutality, coffins containing the remains of the three murdered Israeli hostages were put on display in a ceremony that has been nearly universally condemned.

In a ceremony that has been nearly universally condemned, Hamas set out four coffins on a stage in front of a grotesque caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a banner that read in English, "The war criminal Netanyahu & his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Zionist warplanes."

On the coffins were photos of the deceased with their names and the words "arrest date" and the date of the Oct. 7 attacks.

"Under international law, any handover of the remains of [the] deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families," the United Nations Geneva tweeted, attributing the quote to High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

Türk’s condemnation of the Hamas ceremony, however, rang hollow for many who pointed out the U.N.’s reluctance to condemn the terror organization by name.

"Hamas parading four coffins onstage to music is evil and depraved," Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"For 16 months, Israel has been fighting a deranged terrorist organization that places no value on human life, especially if it is Israeli or Jewish— all while international institutions like the UN refrained from condemning Hamas and formally demanding the immediate return of our hostages."

On Oct. 7, 2023, Türk put out a statement that appeared to equate Hamas’ attacks with Israel’s response, saying he was "shocked and appalled" by the violent attacks and condemning Israel’s response.

Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President and Human Rights Voice Anne Bayefsky accused Türk of being "one of the leading drivers of Palestinian terrorism and global antisemitism in the world today."

"He [Türk] personifies the use and abuse of ‘human rights’ as a front to perpetrate evil. He has blood on his hands," Bayefsky told Fox News Digital. "Volker Türk - the UN's top human rights official - is a human rights fraud who has more concern for Jews after death than saving Jewish lives from Palestinian savagery before they've perished."

United Nations watchdog organization UN Watch called for Türk’s resignation in its December 2024 report showing that the human rights commissioner condemned the U.S. more than China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined. The organization also accused Türk of focusing on the Jewish state.

"Türk was obsessed with condemning Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, making 58 condemnations during the past two years, with 49 on the Hamas-Israel war. To put this in perspective, over the same two years, the Maduro regime in Venezuela was criticized only 4 times," the report reads.

After the Oct. 7 attacks, Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, became symbols of Hamas’ brutality. The image of a terrified mother holding her 4-year-old and 9-month-old quickly spread around the world. Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the father of Kfir and Ariel, was taken captive separately and was ultimately released from Gaza on Feb. 1.

In addition to the bodies of the Bibas boys and Lifshitz, Israel is preparing to receive six living hostages on Saturday as part of its ongoing ceasefire deal with Hamas.

In response to a Fox News request for comment on critics who say Türk’s condemnation of the ceremony was not sufficient, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Türk had been "clear, and steadfast, in his condemnation of the war crimes committed by Palestinian armed groups."

By Jena Aldredge

Archaeologists recently discovered an ancient "city of the dead" in Italy, dating back nearly 3,000 years.

The Italian province of Trentino said in a news release that a "monumental necropolis" from the Iron Age was found in the city of Trento. It dates back to the 9th century B.C. and was used through the 6th century B.C.

Trento sits on the Adige River in northern Italy, near the Italian Alps. The necropolis was developed at a time when "a wide bed of the Fersina stream [basin] crossed by a network of torrential canals that intertwined with each other, separated by temporary sandy or gravelly bars," the release, translated from Italian to English, described.

"The funerary context was likely situated between two channels that could be activated in the event of flooding," the translated statement explained. "The flooding episodes, which began during the phases of the necropolis's use, sealed the ancient archaeological stratification, allowing for the exceptional preservation of the funerary context."

Various floods deposited soil that allowed the necropolis to survive over the centuries. Officials say that the site has been "perfectly preserved" thanks to the floods.

"This circumstance has made it possible to document in detail the usage plans of the necropolis and to accurately reconstruct the funerary practices of the community that occupied this area during the early Iron Age," the statement read.

Researchers say that a main characteristic of the necropolis are its multiple funerary steels, which were stone slabs used in the ancient world as monuments. The steles were placed vertically as markers, and "organized in subparallel rows with a main north-south orientation," according to the statement.

"Each stele marks the western boundary of the main tomb, which is a stone casket covered by a tumulus [mound] structure, around which a dense concentration of satellite tombs developed over time," the press release described.

Archaeologists also found plenty of artifacts, including metal artifacts such as weapons and ornamental objects. The ornamental objects even had amber and glass paste insertions, which "attest to the existence of influences and close cultural relations with Italian environments," according to officials.

Excavators also found "cremation soil" and calcined bones, which were "within containers made of perishable materials" that may have once been wooden caskets.

"It is hypothesized that the burnt remains, often placed above the personal grave goods, were wrapped in a fabric, of which fibers have been preserved in some cases, closed with the help of pins or fibulae [brooches]," the statement read. "In some tombs, the shape of the accumulation suggests the presence of quadrangular wooden caskets."

"The funerary goods uncovered are particularly rich and serve as indicators to define the identity, roles, and functions of the social group to which they belonged."

Officials said that the discovery "will allow us to rewrite the history of the city," and are already grappling with the historical questions the discoveries pose.

"[This] raises complex and complex problems regarding the methods of self-representation in the funerary context of the social group to which, at the moment, the settlement context remains unknown."