By Anat Peled

TEL AVIV -- For 16 months, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Israelis clung to the hope that the Bibas family's young, flame-haired children and their mother might somehow be alive.

The kidnapping of Shiri, 33, Ariel, 4, and nine-month-old Kfir during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, instantly became a searing symbol of that day's brutality -- and of the country's desperate hopes for the safety of its loved ones. Israelis covered Tel Aviv's streets with posters and graffiti of the children's likenesses. Some carried orange balloons on the children's birthdays. Their family fought for their return, as Hamas released other captives including Yarden Bibas, Shiri's husband and the children's father, under a cease-fire deal now in its fifth week.

But on Tuesday, Hamas said the bodies of the hostages it will release this week would include those of Shiri and her sons. The news cast a pall over Israel, which with the hostage releases of recent weeks had been experiencing a joyful break from a year-and-a-half of devastating news.

While the Shiri Bibas and her children had been feared dead for months -- a conclusion that became hard to escape when they weren't included in the release of other women over the past month -- the wider Bibas family has long insisted it wouldn't accept they had died until their bodies were returned.

"In the past few hours, we have been in turmoil following Hamas spokesperson's announcement about the planned return of our Shiri, Ariel and Kfir this Thursday as part of the hostages' remains release phase," the Bibas family said Tuesday. "Until we receive the definitive confirmation, our journey is not over."

The family lived a mile and a half from the Gaza border in the kibbutz of Nir Oz. It was one of the hardest hit communities during the attack -- by its own count, nearly 25% of its 400 residents were killed or kidnapped by the militants who surged through the border fence. Residents said it took the Israeli military until the afternoon to arrive.

Israel's military has acknowledged that it failed to protect its citizens in the attack.

The Bibas family was at home as the attack began. They sheltered together until the militants got close. In his last WhatsApp messages to his sister that morning, Yarden wrote, "They are coming in," then left the shelter in the hope that the militants wouldn't find his wife and children who remained there. Photos soon surfaced online of Yarden surrounded by a mob of Palestinians before being dragged into Gaza, his head and hands bloodied.

After taking Yarden, another group came for his wife and children. Videos and photos of Shiri Bibas surrounded by militants and looking terrified, draped in a white blanket and clutching both boys to her chest, were among the first to go viral early on the Saturday of the attack, when the world was still struggling to comprehend the scale of what was taking place.

Shiri's parents, who also lived in Nir Oz, were killed in the attack.

During happier times, the children's striking hair had been the subject of family jokes. Yarden, who is dark-haired and of Yemeni descent, used to say they were the first redheaded Yemenis.

The last known sign of life of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir came from a street camera feed that the Israeli military obtained from Khan Younis in Gaza. Taken during the Oct. 7 attacks, the footage showed Shiri being led away by militants with Ariel in her hands. The military said that they were taken to an outpost belonging to the Mujahideen Brigades, an armed group. After that, they disappeared.

Family members told Israeli media they had never seen Shiri look so terrified as in the videos of her from that day. Shiri's sister, who saw the family the night before the attack, told The Wall Street Journal in early October 2023 that she first learned about the kidnapping from the images circulating online.

In November 2023, Hamas said Shiri and the children had been killed by an Israeli airstrike. Israel has never officially confirmed their deaths or addressed the possibility they were killed by an airstrike. Israeli authorities use a strict set of forensic standards before declaring any individual hostage dead.

But Israeli officials privately came to the conclusion the family had been killed. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said last month that Israel had "grave concern" for Shiri and her children, a phrase the military often uses when referring to hostages who are later publicly determined to be dead.

Representatives of the military have met privately with the family to convey concern about their fate throughout the war, a former Israeli official with knowledge of the conversations said.

On the last day of a November 2023 cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, the militant group offered to return the bodies of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel along with some living elderly men, according to Israeli and Arab officials. Israel refused, demanding that living female hostages be released before bodies, the former Israeli official said.

The Israeli prime minister's office didn't respond to a request for comment. Gadi Eisenkot, at the time a member of Israel's war cabinet, confirmed the account to Army Radio last summer.

Some of the hostages who were freed in that deal said they saw Yarden in Gaza's tunnels and reported that he was in a poor state. Hamas told him that Israel had killed his wife and two young children in an airstrike and that Israel had refused to accept the bodies. The militant group made Yoram Metzger, a now deceased hostage, translate the news for him from Arabic, according to Metzger's wife, who was held in the same tunnel complex.

Then Hamas filmed Yarden's reaction.

"Bibi, you bombed my family. You killed my wife and children," Yarden gasped, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His beard had grown thick, and he wore a black T-shirt against the backdrop of a white wall. "I beg you, bring me and my wife and my children back home. Please, I beg you." Then the video ends.

The film sent shock waves across Israel. Many in the family couldn't bear to watch it.

Relatives of the Bibas family who have rallied for their release have said that one of the most painful parts of their ordeal has been the uncertainty about their fate.

"For 331 days I have been dying of fear. It's the fear of a knock on the door," Yarden's sister, Ofri Bibas Levy, said in September at a large rally after six dead hostages were retrieved from Gaza. "We are a bereaved family in waiting."

Thursday will be day 503.

Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 19, 2025 08:33 ET (13:33 GMT)

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