ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 64

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Those we are missing

Taken captive: Yarden and Shiri Bibas, and their redheaded babies

Video shows Yarden shot and badly injured, Shiri clutching their baby – the youngest hostage – and preschooler in her arms, as terrorists surrounded Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7

The Bibas family, father Yarden, mother Shiri, baby Kfir and four-year-old Ariel, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. (Courtesy)
The Bibas family, father Yarden, mother Shiri, baby Kfir and four-year-old Ariel, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. (Courtesy)

On the morning of October 7, Yarden Bibas, 34, continuously texted with his sister, Ofri, letting her know what was happening in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lives with his wife, Shiri, 32 and their two boys, Ariel, 4 and Kfir, then 9 months.

“At 6:30 a.m., he wrote about the rockets,” said Ofri in a Kan interview.

Yarden wrote about the terrorists entering the kibbutz, and then he wrote, “‘Fuck,'” said Ofri.

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.

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

In the Kan video, Ofri shows closed captioned TV footage of her brother’s house, as Hamas terrorists drilled open the front door.

Yarden wrote to his sister and parents, “I love you.”

At 9:45 a.m., he wrote, “They’re in.”

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 she was surrounded by terrorists, her boys facing her chest, a blanket covering them.

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

Neither are Shiri’s parents, Margit Silberman Shnaider and her husband Yosi Silberman, who also lived on Nir Oz and were presumed missing but whose bodies were since identified.

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. Kfir, now 10 months, is the youngest of the 240 Israeli hostages in Gaza.

“We called them the first Yemenite redheads,” said Ofri in the Kan video, adding that Yarden and Shiri had been planning on leaving Nir Oz. They were tired of feeling fearful all the time, of the proximity to Gaza and the rockets. They were looking for a home near Ofri and her family, in the Golan Heights.

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