Finally, Israel and Hamas have signed the agreement in Qatar for the release of hostages and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The first phase of the agreement reached will last 42 days and will certify the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli troops towards the border and the exchange of 33 hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Since the announcement of the ceasefire, Israel has only thought about the return of the hostages. Two of them have earned special prominence. It is about a baby and his four year old brotherwho were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
That day, the Islamist organization kidnapped 251 people, including the Israeli-Argentine/Peruvian Bibas family, who lived in the Nir Oz kibbutz. Were Kfir, 9 months, Ariel, 4her mother Shiri, 32, and her husband Yarden, 34. Shiri’s parents, who also lived on the kibbutz, were later found murdered.
Efforts to free them were unsuccessful in these fifteen months of Israel’s occupation of Gaza. In November 2023, the Islamist group even said who had died as a result of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis. In February 2024, a video recorded several days after the kidnapping showed Shiri and the children alive.
Kfir turns 2 years old
Kfir was the youngest hostage kidnapped by Hamas on that bloody day, in which some 1,200 people died. The boy turns two years old this Saturday.
A year ago, members of his family and hundreds of people gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostage Square” to celebrate Kfir’s first birthday. They all dressed up orange, a color that has come to be associated with red-haired Bibas children. Several stars of Israeli children’s music performed that day.
Kfir’s photo was also seen next to Israeli President Isaac Herzog while speaking at the World Economic Forum that same week in January 2024. On February 19, the Israeli military released a video in which members of the Bibas family supposedly appeared in the Khan Yunis area.
The hope that Kfir is alive
A year has passed and the Bibas are on the list of 33 hostages that They will be released during the first phase of the agreement ceasefire. Countless messages of support accompanied by photos of Kfir circulate on Israeli social networks. Many remain hopeful that Kfir is alive.
“They are really a symbol… the two youngest children kidnapped, and if they are no longer alive it will be heartbreaking,” Yafa Wolfensohn, a retiree who frequents the “Hostage Square,” told AFP. At a soccer match held on Wednesday afternoon in the city of Beersheba, Hapoel Beersheba players held orange balls.
On the list of the first 33 hostages to be released the name of the children’s father also appearsYarden Bibas, although that does not guarantee that they are among the living, the newspaper reports Times of Israel. Hostages freed during the November 2023 truce said Yarden was separated from his family. So far, Hamas has not said he is dead.
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