Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two young children were abducted and killed in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, marked his first Rosh Hashanah as a free man without them on Monday by sharing a heartbreaking message on Instagram.
The post included a smiling photo of himself with his wife, Shiri, and their children, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir. Beneath it, he wrote: “Without you, the holidays are not holidays. Dates and days have no meaning. Shiri, Ariel and Kfir — I love you more than anything in the world, always in the world.”
The last phrase — “always in the world” — was a childlike expression Ariel used when showing affection to his parents.
The Bibas family became one of the most recognized symbols of the Oct. 7 assault, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz. Shiri and the boys were filmed being led into Gaza and held by the Mujahideen Brigades, a Gaza-based faction aligned with Hamas and responsible for some of the deadliest kidnappings during the attack. Yarden was captured separately by Hamas after leaving the house to protect his family.
Hamas later claimed Shiri and the children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. After over a year of uncertainty, their bodies were returned in February 2025 as part of a ceasefire agreement, and DNA confirmed their identities. Yarden was freed earlier that same month in a prisoner-exchange deal, after 484 days in Gaza.
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The funeral procession for Shiri Bibas and her young sons, Ariel and Kfir
(Photo: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
The family’s fate horrified Israelis and drew international attention. The image of Shiri clutching her two ginger-haired boys became a defining symbol of the brutality of Oct. 7 and the anguish of the hostage crisis.
In June 2025, the IDF said it had killed senior Mujahideen Brigades operatives involved in the Bibas family’s abduction and deaths.