Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday, including Yarden Bibas, the father of children Ariel and Kfir, who are of Argentine origin. This release is part of the fourth exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, as enabled by the truce agreement in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, Israel requested information about the relatives of Bibas.
The army announced on Saturday morning that Yarden Bibas, 35, and Offer Kalderon, 54, who were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, were already in Israeli territory. They were delivered to the Red Cross in Jan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, in an orderly manner by the Palestinian Islamist movement. Shortly after, the army also received Keith Siegel, 65, who was delivered by the militiamen to the Red Cross in Gaza City.
In exchange, Israel will release 183 prisoners, according to the Palestinian prison club, which is more than double the initial 90 announced. The Israeli Yarden Bibas is the father of the two younger hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023, during their surprise incursion into Israeli territory: Kfir and Ariel, who were eight and a half months and four years old, respectively.
The father of the family was released without his wife Shiri, who is of Argentine origin, or his two children, whose whereabouts are unknown and are the last captive minors in Gaza. Hamas said in November 2023 that they died in an Israeli bombing, but the Army of the Hebrew State did not confirm this, and many people hold on to the hope that they will be found alive.
The family was kidnapped in the Kibutz Nir Oz, and since then, the two red-haired children have become the symbol of the suffering of the captives in Gaza. The announcement caused “emotions found” in the environment of the Bibas family. “Shiri and children have not yet returned,” the family said on Instagram.
The release coincides with the arrival in Israel of the Argentine Foreign Minister, Gerardo Werthein, who plans to meet with relatives of the nine Argentine-Israelis who remain kidnapped in Gaza. The day of the attack, which resulted in 1,210 dead, mostly civilians, according to official data, Hamas took a total of 251 hostages. Of these, 76 are still captive, although the Israeli army takes over 34.
Since the beginning of the truce on January 19, Hamas has already released 18 hostages – 13 Israeli and five Thai – in exchange for some 400 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, many of them women and children. After 484 days of captivity, the forum of hostage families congratulated the new liberations, which are “a lightning light in the midst of darkness.”
Offer Kalderon was also kidnapped at Kibutz Nir Oz with Erez and Sahar, his son and daughter, who were 12 and 16 years old, respectively. The two teenagers were released during the first truce of November 2023. The truce agreement provides for the return in a first six-week phase of 33 of the kidnapped, eight of them deceased, and the release of about 1,900 Palestinians.
In this period, it should also be agreed how to implement the next stage of the truce, aimed at definitively ending the war initiated in October 2023, already completing the liberation of the hostages that follow alive. A senior Israeli official said that negotiations in this regard will be resumed on Monday. The pact foresees a third phase during which the devastated Palestinian territory will be rebuilt and the bodies of the rest of the kidnapped will be returned.
After the exchange of this Saturday, the border crossing between Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, and Egypt will be used to evacuate injured Palestinians, according to sources close to the negotiations. The diplomatic head of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, explained on Friday that the block was going to display a surveillance mission in the border crossing to “allow the transfer of individuals outside Gaza.”
The Israeli offensive devastated this territory and caused the death of at least 47,460 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government, which the UN considers reliable.