For more than a year, many Israelis and others around the world have anguished over the fates of a mother and her two young sons who were captured by gunmen and taken to the Gaza Strip during the Hamas-led assault of October 7th, 2023.
On Tuesday, hopes dissipated that the Israeli woman, Shiri Bibas, and her children would be returned alive when Hamas announced that it would hand over at least some of their bodies this week. Israeli officials later warned against disseminating “rumours” regarding the hostages, without extensively commenting on Hamas’s statement.
For many Israelis, the kidnapping of Bibas, her husband, Yarden, and their redheaded children – Ariel, who was four at the time, and Kfir, then not even nine months old – epitomised the cruelty of the Hamas-led attack that prompted the 15-month war in Gaza. The family’s capture became a rallying cry both for those who supported a deal to end the war and negotiate the hostages’ speedy release, and for those who believed Israel should continue fighting until Hamas was destroyed.
News that Hamas would turn over the bodies, part of a series of negotiated exchanges in this phase of a ceasefire agreement, followed the release of 19 living Israeli hostages in recent weeks. If those releases lifted spirits in Israel, the report of the children’s deaths left many in the country distraught.
Israel has not confirmed the deaths of the three Bibas family members, but the Israeli military said last month it was “gravely concerned” about them.
Israel is expected to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for the bodies.
Yarden Bibas was abducted separately to Gaza. He was seen in video footage being driven away with a bleeding head wound. Shiri Bibas’s elderly parents were also killed in the Hamas-led attack.
The abduction of the Bibas family has been seared into the Israeli national psyche. The campaign for their release has featured orange balloons to symbolise the redheaded boys as well as references to Batman, a character beloved by the toddler Ariel.
In a video from the attack, Shiri Bibas could be seen desperately clutching her two sons while a Palestinian militant stood nearby. Wrapped in a blanket, she appeared terrified.
On Tuesday, the Bibas family said in a statement that Hamas’s pledge to send home their bodies had sent them “into turmoil” but that they were still awaiting further information. “Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over,” the family said.
Roughly 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led 2023 attack and more than 250 abducted, according to Israel. One of the hardest-hit communities was the Bibases’ hometown, Nir Oz, roughly a quarter of whose 400 residents were either killed or taken hostage. Kfir was the youngest to be seized.
The attack prompted Israel to declare war on Hamas and invade Gaza in a military campaign that killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and combatants and left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.
Yarden Bibas texted other family members throughout the attack from the fortified safe room where he had hidden with his wife and children. “I love you all,” he wrote as Palestinian gunmen overran Nir Oz. He later sent a final missive: “They’re coming in.”
Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, put out a statement in November 2023 that Shiri Bibas and her two children had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Fears about their fates grew when they were not among the other captive mothers and children released during a weeklong ceasefire that month.
Hamas later put out a propaganda video showing Yarden Bibas in captivity sobbing as he responded to the claim his family had been killed.
A year ago, the Israeli military released footage from a security camera that it said showed Shiri Bibas and the children in Gaza on the day of their abduction being wrapped in a sheet and forced into a car. Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said at the time that the captives had been taken to an outpost belonging to the Mujahedeen Brigades, a small armed group, in eastern Khan Younis, Gaza, and that they were then taken somewhere else.
This month, Yarden Bibas was released as part of the truce between Israel and Hamas that began in January. The agreement stipulates that Hamas release at least 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners over the deal’s first phase, which, barring an extension, is set to expire in early March.
The Israeli government said last month that Hamas had provided a list indicating that 25 of the 33 hostages were alive and that eight had been killed.
“Sadly, my family hasn’t returned to me yet,” Yarden Bibas said in a statement after his return to Israel. “They are still there. My light is still there, and as long as they’re there, everything here is dark.”
Eylon Keshet, Yarden Bibas’s cousin, described Ariel in November 2023 as a boy who loved being the centre of attention and playing with toy tractors and cars. Kfir, he said, was a “chill” baby on formula who was just beginning to eat solid food.
“We are still clinging to hope,” Jimmy Miller, another relative, said in a radio interview this week. “We are hoping for tears of joy, rather than tears of sorrow.” − This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
