The boys\u2019 bodies\u00a0were handed over to Israel last February.\u00a0Hamas said that another body returned on the same day was Shiri\u2019s but\u00a0forensic testing showed it was not her. Shir\u2019s body was subsequently returned.<\/p>\n
Yarden Bibas\u2019s message,\u00a0posted to his Instagram account,\u00a0began: \u201cMy beloved Kfir. Just a few months after you were born, you were evacuated from home because of a round of fighting in Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cYou got to taste solid food, you started crawling, and you even got to celebrate your brother’s 4th birthday…You didn’t get to celebrate your first birthday, so how can I mark your third?<\/p>\n
\u201cKfir, I’m sorry I brought you into such a cruel world. I hope you know how much I love you and how much I miss you. I’m sure Mum,\u00a0 Ariel, and Tony [the family dog] are celebrating with you in heaven. I’m sure Mum is giving you the best and happiest birthday possible, just the way she knows how.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you more than anything in the world, always, forever\u201d.<\/p>\n
He ended the emotional message with three\u00a0orange heart emoji, the symbol\u00a0that has become ubiquitous among tributes to Kfir and Ariel, signifying the children\u2019s bright hair.<\/p>\n
The boys were killed by Hamas terrorists in captivity in Gaza no later than November 2023, according to the IDF\u2019s forensic examination. Kfir would have been\u00a0ten months old and Ariel aged four at that time.\u00a0Shiri Bibas was 32. Yarden Bibas was released back to Israel after 484 days, in an elaborate\u00a0ceremony staged by Hamas that was widely condemned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boys\u2019 bodies\u00a0were handed over to Israel last February.\u00a0Hamas said that another body returned on the same day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27149,2900,85,46,43,3215],"class_list":["post-247954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-bibas-family","tag-hostages","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-october-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}