Yarden Bibas shared a post on Sunday to mark what would have been his son Kfir’s third birthday. In the message, written in Hebrew and addressed directly to the child he never got to see grow up, Bibas expressed love, longing and grief, alongside an apology that framed the post. “Sorry I brought you into this cruel world,” he wrote.
Bibas went on to write that he thinks about his son constantly and imagines who he might have become. He wrote of the bond he felt as a father, of the life that should have unfolded, and of the pain of knowing he could not protect him. The tone was intimate and restrained, shaped not as a public statement but as a message from a father to his child.
The post included a photograph taken before October 7, showing Bibas holding his infant son in his arms. In the image, Kfir rests calmly against his father, barefoot, in a moment of ordinary life that has since taken on the weight of a farewell.
Kfir Bibas was nine months old when he was kidnapped from his family’s home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel. He was abducted together with his mother, Shiri Bibas, and his older brother, Ariel, who was 4 at the time.
All three were murdered in captivity. Their bodies were returned to Israel in February 2025.
Bibas himself was also abducted on October 7 and held by Hamas for 484 days before his release earlier this year. During his captivity, his wife and children were already dead, though confirmation reached Israel only months later.
The post marking Kfir’s birthday made no reference to politics, war or blame. It contained no call to action or public demand. Instead, it focused on grief, guilt and love, expressed through a father’s apology to a child who never reached his third birthday.
Since October 7, the Bibas family has become one of the most widely recognized symbols of the Hamas attack. Images of Shiri clutching Ariel and Kfir during the abduction spread across the world in the days that followed, appearing at rallies, vigils and memorials in Israel and abroad.
Last week, an environmental memorial known as ‘Bibas Footprints’ was inaugurated near Kibbutz Tze’elim, where Bibas grew up. Designed by architect Zvika Pasternak, the site features concrete footprints representing Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, set within widening circles meant to convey presence, absence and confinement.
Standing at the memorial, Bibas said it was still difficult for him to grasp how a private family tragedy had become a global symbol.
“We were a very anonymous family before October 7,” he said at the time. “Just regular people. Now ‘Bibas’ is one of the most well-known names in Israel, and even around the world.”
The birthday post shared on Sunday returned the story to its most personal scale. It did not speak to the world, but to a single child.
It marked a date that should have been filled with celebration and instead became a moment of remembrance.
A father addressing a son who never grew up, and a birthday that never came.