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THE FAMILY OF Shiri Bibas and her two children have said that Israeli authorities have not provided them with any details regarding their killings after they were taken to Gaza during the 7 October attack by Hamas.
“Any publication of details (including references to the treatment of the bodies) is against the family’s wishes, and we ask that this be avoided,” the statement read.
“The family has not received any such details from official sources.”
It comes after an Israeli military announcement stated that the two young sons of Shiri Bibas were killed “in cold blood” by “terrorists with their bare hands”.
“Any such publication adds deep pain to the family at this time,” the Bibas family said.
Since their abduction on 7 October 2023, Shiri Bibas and her two sons, Ariel who was then aged four, and Kfir, then only nine months, had become symbols of Israel’s hostage ordeal.
They were seized by militants on the day of the attack, and their bodies were handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross this week.
Shiri’s husband and the father of the two boys, Yarden Bibas, had also been abducted but was released alive earlier this month.
While Shiri’s body was positively identified earlier today, the remains of the two young boys were verified on Friday. Hamas said Shiri Bibas’s body had likely been “mistakenly mixed” with that of another woman under rubble in Gaza.
The group has long insisted that an Israeli airstrike killed the three Israeli hostages early in the conflict, which broke out after the 7 October 2023 attack.
However, the Israeli military asserted in a televised statement on Friday that they were killed by militants, who later “committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities”.
The Bibas family described the deaths of the three hostages as murder, but asked that the manner of the death not be shared publicly.
“The family requests to cease adding details regarding the fact that Shiri and the children were murdered by their captors,” it said.
“Yarden and the family want the world to know this was murder, without delving into any specifics.”
Israel never confirmed their deaths, leaving the Bibas family and Israelis more broadly with a sliver of hope that they may still have been alive.
A Hamas official claimed on Friday that the group had offered to hand over their bodies in November 2023, but that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused at the time, something he has rejected.
The Bibas family has blamed Netanyahu for “abandoning” the young boys and their mother, while also saying that they were not seeking revenge “right now”.
Shiri’s sister-in-law, Ofri Bibas, said on Friday that Israeli authorities, particularly the prime minister, had failed to protect the hostages and had abandoned them.
“It was Israel’s responsibility and obligation to bring them back alive,” she said in a statement released on behalf the family through an Israeli campaign group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on 7 October, and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we did not receive an apology from you in this painful moment,” she said.
“My sweet nephews were taken alive from their home and murdered by a cruel terrorist organisation while in captivity. They didn’t deserve such a fate.”
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