The people of Israel embraced them on their final journey, turning out in multitudes along the funeral route for a family that had become emblematic of the country’s trauma after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, taken…
Hamas released six Israeli hostages from Gaza on Saturday, delivering the last living captives set to be freed in the first phase of a fragile cease-fire. That truce was already jolted this week when the militant group initially returned remains purportedly of an Israeli hostage that testing revealed to be someone else. Early Sunday, Israel…
Hamas on Friday said it had turned over to the Red Cross the body of a woman that Hamas officials believe belonged to Shiri Bibas, the Israeli mother whose capture with her two young sons during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack became a symbol of the country’s anguish. Ms. Bibas’s remains were initially believed to…
For 16 months, the smiling faces of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had been slowly receding into the background of Israeli life as their photographs — posted on walls and bus stops soon after the family’s abduction to Gaza in October 2023 — began to fade, tear and peel. On…
The two tiny redheaded boys had captured the hearts of Israelis and became symbols of the long and emotional campaign for the release of the scores of hostages seized during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023. On Thursday, under gray, stormy skies, an anguished nation marked an unofficial day of mourning after Hamas handed…
For more than a year, many Israelis and others around the world have anguished over the fates of a mother and her two young sons who were captured by gunmen and taken to Gaza during the Hamas-led assault of Oct. 7, 2023. On Tuesday, hopes dissipated that the Israeli woman, Shiri Bibas, and her children…
They became a potent symbol of Israel’s hostage crisis after video from the Hamas-led 2023 attack showed Palestinian militants leading away a distraught mother clutching her two small red-haired sons. Another video showed the father of the same family being spirited away to Gaza on a motorcycle, his head bloodied. On Friday, Hamas said the…