Hamas completes return of bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two redhead sons

Sons Kfir, who turned 2 in captivity, and Ariel, 5, taken with their mother on Oct. 7, 2023; father Yarden captured separately and released on Feb. 1, 2025 as part of a ceasefire deal

On February 20, 2025, the bodies of four slain Israeli hostages — three of whom were named by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that abducted them as Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas — were handed over by the terrorist group to the Red Cross, who delivered them to IDF troops in the Gaza Strip. After a short ceremony, the remains were set to be identified at the Health Ministry’s Abu Kabir National Center of Forensic Medicine, after which an official notification will be given to their families. After DNA checks, it transpired that Shiri’s remains were not among the bodies. Her body was finally returned to Israel on February 22, 2025.

Father Yarden Bibas was released on February 1, 2025, as part of the first phase of the negotiated ceasefire-hostage release deal.

Below are initial reports of the capture of the Bibas family on October 7, 2023:

Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two boys, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, then 9 months, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists from their Kibbutz Nir Oz home on October 7.

Her husband, Yarden Bibas, 34 (now 35), was taken hostage separately.

Kfir was the youngest of the 251 Israeli hostages taken to Gaza.

At 6:30 a.m., Yarden wrote to his sister about the rockets. He texted his sister that there was terrible fighting, and intense pressure to try and hold off the wave of Hamas terrorists who entered Nir Oz. The terrorists ended up committing a brutal massacre, in which some 180 of the kibbutz’s 400 residents were killed or abducted.

Shiri’s parents, Margit Shnaider Silberman and Yosi Silberman, also long-time residents of Nir Oz, were killed during the attack.

Yarden told his sister that his little boys didn’t know how to keep quiet, and he told her it felt like the end.

He told his parents and sister that he loved them and texted at 9:45 a.m. that the terrorists had broken into their home.

Some two hours later, the family saw a video circulating of Shiri, holding both boys in her arms, a look of terror on her face as terrorists surrounded her, her boys facing her chest, a blanket covering them.

Yarden, her husband, isn’t in any of the videos.

Eventually, the Bibas family found a video of Yarden, injured with blood around his head, surrounded by terrorists.

“He’s living death,” said another family member.

All four Bibas family members are presumed captives.