Yarden Bibas, father of youngest Hamas hostage freed in cease-fire swap
The father of the youngest Israeli child kidnapped by Hamas was one of three hostages released Saturday in the latest cease-fire deal swap — further deepening concerns about the fate of his family.
Yarden Bibas was kidnapped during the terror group’s bloody Oct. 7 rampage through Israel that left 1,200 dead and saw another 251 people dragged to Gaza as hostages.
He was released alongside French-Israeli national Ofer Calderon, 54, in Khan Younis to the Red Cross around 8:30 a.m. local time.
American-Israeli citizen Keith Siegel, 65, is to be freed at a separate location in the Gaza Strip.
The couple’s kids, including Ariel, then 4, and their youngest child, Kfir, then just 9-months-old, became symbols of Hamas cruelty after video widely circulated online showed the two red-headed youngsters in their fear-stricken mom Shiri’s embrace before being hauled off by Hamas from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Additional video surfaced showing Yarden, 35, surrounded by a mob of terrorists and bleeding profusely from his head as he was captured.
Hamas included the names of all four kidnapped Bibas family members on a list of 33 hostages set to be released under the first stage of the cease-fire deal, which brought 15 months of fighting in Gaza to a halt earlier this month.
While Yarden was released, concerns over the safety of his wife and children have grown.
Israel has said eight of the remaining hostages to be released during the 42-day truce are believed to be dead. The terms of the cease-fire deal required Hamas to have already released all living women and children.
Hamas previously released twisted footage showing a traumatized Yarden sobbing and shaking as his captors informed him that his wife and children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the early months of the war.
The terror group, however, has provided no evidence of the family’s deaths, and Israel has yet to confirm they were killed.
There were “grave concerns” over the fate of Shiri and her children, said Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari.
After learning Yarden was set to be released Saturday, relatives of the Bibas family said their emotions were mixed and “are facing very complex days.”
