Hamas terrorists claim that their two youngest hostages, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, will be among the four dead they will return to Israel later this week.
Following threats from President Donald Trump — who made it clear that he would stand by and support Israel in taking whatever measures deemed necessary if the remaining hostages were not released in the coming days — Hamas also agreed to release six living hostages on Saturday and another four deceased hostages next week.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office confirmed that negotiations in Cairo, Egypt, had resulted in an agreement and shared the details of the upcoming exchange with CNN. Israel will also release several Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli officials have not yet confirmed that the Bibas children — just four years old and nine months old, respectively, at the time of their capture — are among the dead, but they did say that the families of the hostages have all been notified of the agreement.
The Bibas children — along with their mother Shiri and father Yarden — were among those kidnapped and taken into Gaza on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists breached the border into Israel and killed more than 1200 people. They tortured, raped, and slaughtered hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children — and then returned to Gaza with dozens more as their hostages.
In November 2023, just weeks after the family was taken hostage, Hamas claimed that the young boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hamas also claimed that they had offered to return the bodies to Israel Defense Forces at the time, but their offer had been rejected.
Israeli officials could not confirm at the time whether or not claims of their deaths were true.
“The Hamas terrorist organization presented harsh documentation of Yarden Bibas,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said after the video was released. “Our hearts are with the entire Bibas family. We will continue to return all our captives. Hamas employs psychological terror against the families of the captives. Its purpose is to exert pressure, to harm our resilience.”
Yarden Bibas was released from Hamas captivity on February 1, 2025 — one year and four months after he was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
