Israel Awaits Fate of Youngest Hostage as Ceasefire Deal Looms

TEL AVIV, Israel — Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage still held in Gaza, turned 2 years old on Saturday, having spent more than half his life in captivity. The red-headed toddler, captured during the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, remains at the center of a painful uncertainty as Israel braces for the potential release of 33 hostages under a new ceasefire deal.

Kfir, who was just 9 months old when kidnapped, is seen in widely circulated posters clutching a pink elephant. Alongside his 5-year-old brother, Ariel, and their parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, the family is among those expected to be freed in the first phase of the agreement. However, their fate remains unclear, with Hamas previously claiming that Shiri and the children were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

“Not knowing is so hard that sometimes I just want to scream,” said Ofri Bibas-Levy, Kfir’s aunt, in an interview with NBC News. “Just tell me, even if it’s the worst thing.”

The last known sighting of the Bibas family was on the day of the Hamas attacks, when footage showed them being herded by gunmen through Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. While other child hostages were released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023, the Bibas family never emerged. Hamas later claimed that Shiri and the children had been killed, though Israel has not confirmed the claim.

In February 2024, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defense Forces‘ chief spokesperson, expressed deep concern for the family’s well-being. “Based on the information available to us, we are very concerned and worried about the condition and well-being of Shiri and the children,” he said during a news conference.

Yarden Bibas, Kfir’s father, was kidnapped separately and held in a different part of Gaza. Hostages freed during the November ceasefire reported that Hamas guards attempted to inform Yarden of his family’s alleged deaths. Nili Margalit, a neighbor from Nir Oz, recounted refusing to deliver the message, telling her captor, “If he wanted to say such a horrible sentence to Yarden, then he is the one that has to look him in the eyes and tell him.”

Hamas later released a video of a distraught Yarden Bibas, further deepening the family’s anguish. “I thought: I’m losing Yarden now because I couldn’t think that he could bear and survive this thing they told him,” Bibas-Levy said.

The ceasefire deal, which comes after nearly 15 months of conflict, has sparked a mix of hope and fear among the Bibas family and other hostage families. “We know this will bring us some kind of certainty, but we are very scared as well,” Bibas-Levy said. “It could be a good certainty or a bad one.”

As the war in Gaza continues, health officials report more than 47,000 Palestinian deaths since the conflict began. The war was triggered by Hamas’ multipronged attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, according to official tallies.

Bibas-Levy, who thinks of her brother “every second of every day,” remains hopeful but realistic. “We know the condition the hostages are being kept in,” she said. “So for a toddler and a baby, it’s difficult even if they survived the attack that Hamas said they were killed in.”

In Tel Aviv, families of hostages gathered at Hostages Square, carrying stuffed animals in honor of Kfir’s second birthday. The pink elephant from his poster has become a symbol of hope. Days before the ceasefire was signed, the family found the actual elephant in the wreckage of their home in Nir Oz. “It was really very emotional,” Bibas-Levy said. “And hopefully a good sign, maybe.”