Ariel Bibas will celebrate his fifth birthday in Gaza, while his younger brother Kfir has spent more time as a hostage than living freely.
By Amelie Botbol, JNS
“Ariel loves Batman. He drew a picture and asked his teacher to write on it, ‘I fly and save people who are stuck in a pit,’” Eli Bibas, whose son Yarden, daughter-in-law Shiri and grandsons, Ariel and Kfir were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas to Gaza, told JNS on Wednesday.
“Kfir has been in captivity more days than he was free in his lifetime. In January, we marked his first birthday. On Monday, we will mark Ariel’s fifth birthday,” Bibas lamented.
Ariel and Kfir remain the last two children in captivity of Hamas.
Ariel Bibas holds his little brother, Kfir. Credit: The Hostage and Missing Families Forum.
On Monday, Bibas participated in a march from Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to “Hostage Square” outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where a ceremony was held to mark Ariel’s fifth birthday.
“Before I go to sleep, I think of them and hope that maybe I’d finally get a call to tell me they were rescued, or that I’d see a picture of an IDF soldier holding my grandsons, saving them. We hope there will be a miracle,” Bibas said.
On Oct.7, Bibas, who lived in Kibbutz Tze’elim, approximately 12 miles from Nir Oz, was planning to visit his son later that morning when at 6:30 a.m., anti-rocket sirens blared throughout the Israeli communities facing the Gaza Strip.
“I called Yarden to ask him how he was. He said he was inside his safe room and told us to take care of ourselves. I thought it was just another round of rockets,” Bibas said.
“At around 9:20 a.m., I saw a message from him on my phone reading, ‘I love you.’ I showed it to my wife and she immediately felt that something was wrong,” he continued.
Ariel Bibas holds the Batman sign he drew. Credit: The Hostage and Missing Families Forum.
That day, Shiri, holding one of her red-headed children in each arm, entered the Israeli consciousness when footage of the three of them surrounded by armed, aggressive terrorists, was broadcast.
“She was looking in all directions, for Yarden or just someone to help her. It’s impossible to imagine what she went through at that moment, the fear in her eyes. At the same time, the way she protected her children, held on to them, hearing terrorists yell in the background not to harm her reassured me a little bit,” Bibas said.
Three days later, he received a photo from an international news outlet of Yarden, bloodied but alive.
No reliable data
On Nov. 24, when Hamas began releasing women and children in exchange for terrorists as part of a weeklong ceasefire with Israel, Bibas hoped every day to get a message informing him that Shiri, Kfir and Ariel were part of the 105 hostages returned to Israel. They were not.
On Nov. 29, the IDF announced it was investigating Hamas claims that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were dead.
“All that was shown to us was from the day of their kidnapping. All we know since then is that Hamas claimed they no longer are alive and that’s why they weren’t freed. The army told us there is no reliable data,” Bibas said.
On Nov. 30, Hamas shared footage of Yarden after telling him that his family had been killed.
“Until the video where they told him that Shiri and the kids were dead, he did not even know they had been kidnapped,” the grandfather said.
“I only heard what he said in the clip. I watched a very small part, but I couldn’t watch it all. I just saw him crying at the beginning and I couldn’t continue. I also couldn’t watch the images of the brutal lynching of Yarden where we see all of them hitting him and he is bleeding, I can’t imagine what he is going through,” Bibas said ruefully.
Last month, Bibas joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who addressed the U.S. Congress and met with U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former president and Republican 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“I brought with me the photo of Ariel, holding the drawing in which he asked his kindergarten teacher to write for him, ‘I fly and I save people who are stuck in a pit.’ I did not have a frame at first, I made a really nice one and asked Netanyahu to give it to President Biden, and he did. He also gave it to Trump,” Bibas said.
“I hope they will look at the picture and will push for a deal to be made. It was important for me that they have it,” he continued.
Relating to the killing of Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, Bibas acknowledged that it’s hard to know what impact such a development could have on hostage negotiations.
“Before the assassination, I had a good feeling that the talks were going in the right direction, but now, I don’t know,” he said. “I hope it will have a positive impact and that somehow this will put pressure on Hamas to understand that they have nowhere to go on” with the war.