Hostage release to answer grim question: Are the Bibas brothers alive?
As Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire deal, there is a renewed stir around the youngest Israeli hostages, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and questions about their fate.
The Context
Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal to pause the devastating war in Gaza, multiple sources confirmed Wednesday, raising the chance to end the deadly conflict. The United States and Qatar confirmed the agreement. The war, which has waged for over a year, has killed over 46,000 people in Gaza, according to the local Health Ministry.
The two boys became a symbol of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Videos circulated online, including a video of the boys’ mother, Shiri, holding her redheaded children in her arms as militants surrounded her.
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What To Know
In a statement to the Israeli press, the Bibas family said, “Given our experience with disappointments, we consider nothing final until our loved ones cross the border.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas abducted the Israeli family from the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. Kfir was 9-months-old, and his brother Ariel was 4-years-old. Tomorrow will be Kfir’s second birthday, a celebration he has never experienced outside captivity.
A now famous video shows the boys’ mother, Shiri, trying to protect her sons with a look of terror on her face. Pictures later showed the boys’ father, Yarden, bleeding from his head and taken away by gunmen. Shiri’s parents, who also lived on the kibbutz, were later found dead.
The Israeli Defense Forces said that Hamas had transferred the family to a different armed group in Gaza.

Yifat Zailer / Facebook
On November 24, 2023, during a multi-day ceasefire agreement, Shiri and her sons were expected to be released. The Times of Israel reported that Israel considered it a violation of the deal that they were not.
Five days later, Hamas said that Shiri and her boys were killed as a result of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis. A hostage released during the original ceasefire had said that she and another hostage had been forced to tell Yarden that his family was killed.
Israel said at the time that Hamas’ claims were not verified and that they could be a part of psychological warfare.
On February 19, 2024, the IDF showed the four Bibases a video of Shiri and the children several days after the abduction in southern Gaza, according to Ynet.
Their relatives have been forcefully demonstrating and working behind the scenes to bring their family members home. On Kfir’s first birthday last year, people gathered to wish for his return.
Street art depicting the family has popped up in Tel Aviv. One shows the four lighting a menorah together. Another more abstract piece has the words “Kfir 9-months-old too young to learn hate.” One shows Ariel pushing a play stroller with the phrase, “Ariel will never be the same again.”
However, in their statement on Wednesday, the Bibas family urged against speculation.
“We are aware of the reports noting that all members of our family are included in the first stage of the agreement and that Shiri and the children are among the first to be released,” the statement said. “We have gained enough experience and disappointments and therefore there is no end to the story until our loved ones cross the border.”

AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo
The statement asked that “no one reached out to us in this sensitive time” as they wait “for certainty about their release and their conditions.”
“We are asking not to lend a hand to spreading rumors,” the statement reads. “We address the prime minister and continue the demand to release them all, until the final hostage.”
What People Are Saying
Eli Bibas, Kfir and Ariel Bibas’s grandfather, at a press conference this week: “We have already passed a year and three months in which I learned to exist in uncertainty, fear, lack of control, helplessness. The past few weeks have been particularly shocking and painful. I try not to drown in the sea of rumors, news, half-truths and lies surrounding the negotiations, to depend on any positive news. And in the midst of all this, this coming Saturday, our Kfir will mark his second birthday in captivity.”
Jimmy Miller, Shiri Bibas’s cousin, to Jewish News Syndicate: “We know nothing about them. We are really sad about the situation, about all the soldiers that are killed every day in Gaza, about the plight of the hostages. We will remember that it’s his birthday, and we will hope to get good news in the next few days, but we will not do anything like last year. We still believe something good will happen, but after one year, we don’t know what to expect.”
Musician Hila Shlomo told AFP at “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv: “To imagine them coming back alive brings me immense joy. What happened to these children is a symbol, a symbol of man-made evil, but also of the victory of life if we manage to free them, whatever the cost.”
What’s Next
Over the terms of the ceasefire deal, within 42 days, 33 women, children and older and ill hostages will be released. Israeli officials have indicated that most but not all of them are alive.
If the ceasefire continues, Israel and Hamas will then begin negotiating toward the release of the 65 other hostages.