Footage from security cameras showing Hamas kidnappers transferring the Bibas family into a car on Oct. 7, 2023. Courtesy of IDF Spokesperson Unit

By Jacob Kornbluh February 19, 2024

The Israeli army released on Monday footage of the abducted Bibas family arriving in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, shortly after terrorists from Hamas kidnapped them on Oct. 7. The family and their two red-haired children — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, nine-months-old when he was taken as the youngest hostage — has become an international symbol of the effort to secure the release of the hostages.

The footage shows Shiri Bibas, 32, surrounded by armed individuals, being forced to cover herself with a cloth outside a military post belonging to the Mujahideen Brigades terror group. It shows her children hidden under the cloth and being forced into a vehicle. 

The chief IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said forces obtained the video in recent weeks from surveillance cameras while operating in the area. The IDF first shared the footage with the family before releasing it to the public.

“Seeing this young mother, clutching her babies, surrounded by a group of armed terrorists is horrifying and heart-wrenching,” Hagari said, “but it is also a call for action, that we must bring the hostages home, fast.”

The fate of the Bibas family, including the father Yarden, who was kidnapped separately, remains uncertain. Hamas claimed in November that the kids were killed by IDF airstrikes. All of the other young hostages and their mothers were released during a 10-day ceasefire deal in November.

Hagari said the IDF is “very concerned about the condition and safety of Shiri and the children and are making every effort to obtain more information about their fate.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement that Israel “will bring these kidnappers of babies and mothers to justice. They won’t get away with it.”

Representatives of the Bibas family said the images are “unbearable and inhumane” and that the release of the children should be “the first condition in any deal.”

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