Tel Aviv [Israel], December 2 (ANI/TPS): The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) resumed combat operations in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning after Hamas broke a week-long ceasefire, throwing into doubt the further release of hostages. “Unfortunately, Hamas decided to terminate the pause by failing to release all the kidnapped women,” said Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy in a briefing for journalists. “Having chosen to hold onto our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings.”
Levy said that Hamas continues to hold 137 hostages, including two children. Israel has focused on the return first of women and children. According to Levy, 117 of the hostages are male and 20 are female. The two hostages under the age of 18 are nine month-old Kfir Bibas and her four year-old brother, Ariel. Hamas purposefully separated families. Hamas claims the two Bibas children and their mother are dead but has not provided evidence.
The only minors freed in Thursday’s releases were 17 year-old Aisha Ziyadne and her 18 year-old brother Bilal, from the Bedouin community of Rahat. Their father and a 25 year-old brother are still in captivity. Ten other hostages are 75 or older, Levy said. Levy added that 11 of the remaining captives are foreign nationals.
Levy denounced Hamas for branding brothers Yigal and Or Yaakov, ages 12 and 16 respectively, with motorcycle exhaust pipe to prevent their escape, and drugging the children when moving hostages from one location to another. Levy also denounced Hamas for having a veterinarian treat 21 year-old captive Mia Schem, who suffered a hand injury during her abduction.
At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas‘s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Some people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains. (ANI/TPS)
Hamas’s youngest hostage had just begun crawling
Tel Aviv [Israel], November 13 (ANI/TPS): Nine months old. The smiling red-haired baby had recently started to crawl after rocking on all fours. Kfir Bibas lived with his parents and 4-year-old brother in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
On Oct. 7, their lives were changed forever as the family–mom Shiri, dad Yarden, and the two kids–was abducted by Hamas to Gaza when the Islamist terrorists overran the area and went on a murderous rampage.
At nine months old, Kfir is the youngest of the roughly 240 hostages–including 32 children–held by Hamas.
After a month with no news on the family’s whereabouts or condition, Kfir is now 10 months old.
His grandfather clings to the hope that the family will be released soon amid reports of a possible hostage release this week.
“This is my whole life now,” Eli Bibas, 66, said Sunday in an interview with the Tazpit Press Service about his son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons being held by Hamas. “We have got to get them home.”
That fateful Saturday, Eli was supposed to visit the family at 10 a.m., at their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, but the air raid sirens went off at 6:30, warning of incoming rockets from Gaza, sending everybody to their protected rooms.
Eli, who lives about 20 minutes away, texted Yarden, 34, to be sure the family was OK.
“Like the rest of the Gaza border communities, he was in the sealed room,” Eli said.
That morning, Yarden kept texting with his sister Ofri, letting her know what was happening in Nir Oz, where he lived with Shiri, 32, Ariel and Kfir.
But by 9 a.m. the air raid warnings kept coming and coming, and Eli knew something was astray. At 9:20 his son texted him “I love you,” the same message he sent his mom and sister.
Just two months earlier, Yarden’s sister had moved from a nearby Gaza border community to the Golan Heights, to get away from the rocket attacks. Her brother had been thinking about making a similar move, his father recounted, and had also bought a handgun.
“Imagine what it would have been like for me now if my daughter had not moved,” he said in the interview.
Yarden told his sister that there was noise outside and that they were having difficulty keeping the kids quiet but he was afraid to use the gun since the terrorists had automatic weapons.
At 9:45 a.m., he texted, “They’re inside.”
A video would soon come out of the Hamas terrorists drilling open the front door.
Hours later, a video circulated 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.
Three days later, another picture would emerge, of a bloodied Yarden Bibas, a terrorist holding his throat with one hand and a hammer in the other.
Shiri’s parents were burned alive in their homes in the kibbutz, their daughter held in Gaza still unaware of their fate.
One in four members of their kibbutz was kidnapped or killed.
Ofri, who has been to London and Cyprus to speak out for her brother’s family and the other hostages after a fruitless meeting with the International Red Cross in Tel Aviv, will travel to Geneva on Monday to speak at the U.N. Human Rights Council, Eli said.
“No one could have imagined such a nightmare,” he said. (ANI/TPS)
