‘He isn’t dead, he’s in his room’: Ariel Bibas’s 5-year-old friend struggles with his loss

In a heart-rending address during a rally of relocated Kibbutz Nir Oz residents held in Kiryat Gat on Saturday, the mother of Yoav Avital, a friend of murdered hostage Ariel Bibas, described his loss from the perspective of her 5-year-old son.

Ariel, aged 4, his baby brother Kfir, just nine months old, and their mother, Shiri, were murdered by Hamas terrorists after being abducted to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. Their father, Yarden, was released from the enclave in a ceasefire and hostage release deal on February 1.

Ariel and 5-year-old Yoav Avital had grown up together since they were babies.

A month after Hamas terrorists overran Kibbutz Nir Oz, murdering or kidnapping almost a quarter of its population, the survivors and those of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom gathered at the Eilat hotel where they had initially been evacuated, for an event with pop star Avraham Tal.

Yamit Avital — who is now living in Kiryat Gat, where her community is housed until their badly damaged kibbutz is rebuilt — described the Eilat event in her Saturday address. During that November 2023 gathering, Yamit recalled, photos of the abductees were distributed. Nobody yet knew for certain who was missing, kidnapped, or dead.

“My husband was holding the photo of Ariel Bibas,” Avital remembered. “Yoav, my 5-year-old son, saw the photo and said to him, ‘He isn’t my friend anymore. He’s dead,’ and then fell asleep on the couch. He couldn’t contain all the pain, as we all broke down in tears.”

She went on, “After it was all over, he looked at me in the dining room and screamed through tears, ‘Ariel isn’t dead!! He’s not dead, Mom, he’s alive, he’s in his room, and you just don’t know what the room number is!'”

“I didn’t know what to say; I just hugged him and cried,” Avital said.

She continued, “When the first exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners came [in November 2023], Yoav kept asking what happened to Ariel and Kfir. When was it their turn to come back?”

Then, several months ago, Yamit recalled on Saturday, she had stood on the same stage in Kiryat Gat, and talked about the family’s friend Ohad Yahalomi, who was also taken captive, and is believed to have been murdered in captivity.

Hamas is scheduled to return Yahalomi’s body and the remains of three other slain hostages on Thursday.

“When I finished, I got off the stage, and Yoav approached me and innocently asked, ‘But why didn’t you mention Ariel? He hasn’t come back yet; you should have talked about him too,'” Yamit recollected.

She went on, “Now and then, Yoav would ask me if I knew what was happening with Ariel and Kfir and shared how much he missed him and cared about him.”

“He even asked me to write him a letter and bring it to Mali, the kindergarten teacher, so that when he [Ariel] returned to kindergarten, she could give it to him. And he told me what to write: ‘I want to draw Batman for you along with all the flying heroes so that you’ll feel like flying over Gaza and fight the bad guys with a bow and arrow. Then you’ll come back to us and be with us in kindergarten. I hope you buy yourself some sweets and a cape. I miss you.'”

A few weeks later, when he realized Ariel had still not come back, Yoav asked to send a message on the radio so that Ariel might hear and find the strength to return, Avital said.

She continued, “Each time he asked me if Ariel and Kfir had a playground there in Gaza and if they were allowed to play in the sand and run outside, like on the kibbutz.”

On Purim last year, Yoav asked to keep the Batman costume for Ariel, saying he would definitely be back soon. When Ariel did not return, Yoav decided to wear it himself and fly to save him, Avital said.

“Over the past month and a half, we told the children about the (hostage release-prisoner swap) deal and all its details,” Avital said Saturday, adding, “Yoav jumped with joy that Ariel would be back any minute.” But she also had to tell them that dead people would come back too, and nobody knew who they were yet.

“That’s what Yoav was most afraid of, and he innocently asked, ‘So Ariel is dead? He won’t come back?'” Avital remembered, continuing, “And I said, ‘I don’t know if he’ll come back alive.’

“That day, Yoav began the process of saying goodbye to him, and while crying, he said, ‘My heart hurts, it’s heavy, I can’t stop thinking about him.'”

“Every Shabbat, my children asked if Ariel would return this time, but each time, other hostages who were older than he came back. Then the question arose, ‘Where are Ariel, Kfir, and Shiri? They’re the youngest there. Why aren’t they being brought back first? Shiri is a woman; she is supposed to return before the men.'”

“Yoav said that maybe they love them so much there because Ariel is funny and mischievous and that it’s hard for the terrorists to simply say goodbye to them,” Avital said.

“Last Tuesday, the list of names of the living hostages being released [last Saturday] arrived, and that’s when we realized that we had to prepare ourselves and explain it to the children.”

“When the news arrived, questions began, innocent children’s questions: ‘What? Why? How did he die? How did they do it? Why would they kill them? But they didn’t do anything to them. He’s only 5 years old, younger than me, and Kfir is still a baby…'”

“Then came the thoughts. ‘If he arrives in a coffin, that means he’s standing inside it, so that means he’s still alive,’ (and) ‘So how did he get into a coffin that’s lying down? He’s still alive, mom, you didn’t understand correctly. Because if Ariel is in space, that means he’s flying in space, he can’t die.'”

“And the ideas: ‘But there are some very smart people in Israel, right, Mom? So maybe they can invent a special potion with ingredients that will bring Ariel and Kfir back to life. It will have a little of the power of Batman’s two knives, fire, speed, and the cape so that he can fly quickly to Gaza. There, the knives will quickly cut the bottle, and it will spill over his body, and then he can come back to us. Simple.'”

Avital explained to Yoav that someone who had died could not come back to life. “But I miss him,” Yoav replied. “Will I be able to see him at least once more?”

Listening to the conversation, Adi, Yoav’s 8-year-old sister, said, “At least we managed to see them before… everything happened, in the pool. Yoav didn’t want to leave him, and they played for a long time and were very happy. I remember that, even though the water was already very cold — that was our farewell to them.”

Adi asked her brother whether he could remember the things he had done with Ariel. He replied, “We also fought. I wouldn’t have argued with him if I had known…”

“It’s okay, good friends fight too, you know,” Adi replied.

Avital said, “With eyes full of tears, all I could do was tell him that he would be able to meet him again in his dreams and hug him tightly there, play superheroes with him, be wild together in the pool, explore insects and plants and tell him how you are and hear how he is.”

Avital then addressed Shiri Bibas, saying, “I want to believe that just as you enveloped and protected Arielulu (nickname) and sweet Kfir during the kidnapping, you also hugged and didn’t leave (them) until the last moment. You will always remain in my memory as a lioness mother.”

“Your story should have ended differently; we hoped for a happy ending,” Avital said. “But now that there is certainty for you (all) and we know that you are no longer suffering and are here, at home, and will have a grave in the Land of Israel, we ask you to rest in peace, the peace that you so deserve.”

When they were abducted, the two redheaded children became worldwide symbols of the horrors of October 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded the Gaza border area, murdering 1,200 and kidnapping 251. A video circulated online showed gunmen surrounding a terrified Shiri, clinging to her two young boys.

The terror group released the bodies of the two boys on February 20, along with the remains of a woman that Hamas falsely claimed was Shiri Bibas. Shiri’s body was only handed over two days later. Her husband, Yarden Bibas, abducted and kept separate from his family, was released alive on February 1.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces said forensic examinations had revealed that the terrorists holding Ariel and Kfir murdered them “with their bare hands” weeks after they had been abducted. On Saturday, Israel said Shiri Bibas was brutally murdered along with her sons.