From Literary event features orange balloons for redheaded Bibas children held hostage in Gaza
Canaan Lidor is a former Jewish World reporter at The Times of Israel
Dozens of writers and journalists gather in Tel Aviv for a children’s literary event which is used as an opportunity to raise awareness to the plight of an Israeli family held hostage in Gaza for 82 days.
Attending the annual SASA Setton Prize for Children’s Literature award ceremony, Ofri Levi Bibas from Moshav Giv’at Yoav says she “would have come anywhere to remind anyone” of her brother, Yarden Bibas, and his wife Shiri and two children, Ariel and Kfir, aged 4 and 11 months respectively.
The mother and children from Kibbutz Nir Oz, known to many in Israel as “the redheads,” are a symbol of Hamas’s barbarity for countless Israelis.
Hamas has claimed that the Bibas family was killed in an Israeli strike, though Israel’s government has not confirmed what it has said is a “cruel” claim by the terror group.
“We have not heard anything since that report, and we are trying to stay optimistic,” says Ofri Levi Bibas, standing next to orange balloons, whose color is a reference to the redheaded children.
Organizers plan to release the balloons at the end of the award ceremony, held at Microsoft’s Tel Aviv offices, to symbolize the intense hope of Israelis to see the Bibas family return.
The judging panel for the award, which includes author Lihi Lapid, wife of Opposition Leader Yair Laid, gives this year’s prize to Orit Bergman’s “Shoshana, the Bored Dung Beetle.”
It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 22 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
