They grew to become a potent image of Israel’s hostage disaster after video from the Hamas-led 2023 assault confirmed Palestinian militants main away a distraught mom clutching her two small red-haired sons. One other video confirmed the daddy of the identical household being spirited away to Gaza on a bike, his head bloodied.
On Friday, Hamas stated the 35-year-old father, Yarden Bibas, will likely be one in every of three male hostages to be freed on Saturday.
Israelis are nonetheless anxiously awaiting phrase of his spouse, Shiri, and their two youngsters, Ariel, now 5, and Kfir, who was 9 months outdated on the time of his seize — the youngest hostage taken into Gaza. Final week, Daniel Hagari, an Israeli navy spokesman, appeared to brace the general public for the probability that they might not come out alive, saying the navy was “gravely involved” for the mom and kids.
Hamas claimed final 12 months that Ms. Bibas and her youngsters had been killed by an Israeli airstrike, however Israeli officers have by no means confirmed that. A number of hostages had been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, by accident shot or presumably on account of Israeli airstrikes. The navy has additionally stated some civilian hostages could have been killed by Israeli forces as they had been being kidnapped on the day of the Oct. 7 assault.
The Bibas household has been by way of “a twisted actuality from hell,” a relative, Yifat Zailer, stated in an interview final 12 months.
The household of 4 had been amongst greater than 180 residents of kibbutz Nir Oz, a farming group in southern Israel, who had been killed or kidnapped within the Oct. 7 assault. Since then, the household grew to become the faces of a nationwide trauma that sparked a fierce Israeli warfare in Gaza geared toward eradicating Hamas, an onslaught that has killed greater than 47,000 Palestinians, in response to Gaza well being officers, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Greater than 1,750 individuals in Israel have been killed within the warfare, about 1,200 of them on the day of the Oct. 7 assault, in response to Israeli officers. The toll contains greater than 890 members of the Israeli navy forces.
All through greater than a 12 months of ready, hostage households and their supporters have carried orange balloons and worn orange shirts in honor of the lacking youngsters and their ginger-colored hair. They’ve held giant occasions to mark the primary two birthdays of Kfir, who has by no means celebrated one out of captivity.
All different youngsters seized within the Oct. 7 assault had been launched in a earlier cease-fire deal.
Israeli officers pressed Hamas negotiators in current days for extra readability on Ms. Bibas and her youngsters, in response to Israeli media. As a feminine civilian with youngsters, they had been anticipated to be launched within the preliminary levels of the cease-fire deal, earlier than troopers or males, in the event that they had been alive.
Mr. Bibas was kidnapped individually from his household.
Within the early morning hours earlier than his seize, he texted his sister, Ofri Bibas-Levy, to inform her about incoming rocket hearth, in response to an interview she gave to Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster. Later, he texted her that militants had entered the camp. He had a gun, he informed her, however the militants had computerized rifles.
He then described scenes of clashes on the kibbutz and his worry that his two younger sons wouldn’t be capable to hold quiet.
“It looks like the top,” he wrote her at 9:10 within the morning.
Video from the Oct. 7 assault on Nir Oz revealed pictures of militants drilling open the Bibas household’s entrance door.
Someday earlier than her brother was captured, Ms. Bibas-Levy informed Kan, he texted her and their dad and mom that he cherished them. At 9:45 within the morning, he wrote: “They’re in.”
Ms. Bibas-Levy informed Kan that the primary she realized of her brother’s Oct. 7 kidnapping when she noticed a video of militants abducting him a couple of days later.
In November 2023, not lengthy after Hamas stated Ms. Bibas and her youngsters had been killed by Israeli bombing, the group launched a video of Mr. Bibas being informed his spouse and kids had been killed, as he broke down crying.
Photographs of the Bibas household have been seared into the Israeli psyche all through the disaster. They had been on the entrance web page of one of many nation’s hottest each day newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth, beneath the headline “A Mom and Two Small Souls, Led Into the Darkness.”
And throughout the nation, graffiti depicting the household has appeared on the streets. Some present child Kfir holding a pink elephant, as within the picture used for his hostage poster. Others present an imagined reunion of the Bibas household, lighting a Hanukkah menorah.
“I do know they grew to become an emblem,” Ms. Bibas-Levy stated in a tearful information convention final February. “However for us, it’s our household, and we would like them again.”
Johnatan Reiss and Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
