Bearing Witness [E08]-The Bibas Family - From Hope To Despair Over & Over
The Rollercoaster Of Emotions And Dealing With The Unknown
Bearing Witness for those who cannot do so.
Bearing Witness: The Profiles In Horror & Courage Series is a witness-by-witness rendition of what happened on October 7 and afterward.
I will be releasing these, one at a time, mixed in with the other posts from The View From Israel Newsletter.
Why?
Many have forgotten or chosen to ignore what occurred on October 7 and afterward. And history demands these be recorded and put in the annals of the war. Additionally, many do not have the patience to go through YouTube videos and listen to the inane advertisements every 5 minutes. Or we turn our brains off. Perhaps, in writing, it will help.
These are the rules for what you will read in the series:
The English is far from perfect. Remember, these are people who, for the most part, are not native English speakers.
In editing the transcripts, there is a limit to how much one wants to remove from the person’s original voice. It is a balance that takes time. So you will notice that though some sentences and paragraphs could read much better, the wording was left as is, with some minor corrections so that the reader will feel the original voice, horror, and fear.
There is no natural order to which witness I place first, second, and so on.
I have eyeballed the text and run it through Grammarly to catch the blatant mistakes and problems.
The paragraph structure may be off as well. It is difficult to put a transcription into an entirely correct English structure. Dividing paragraphs correctly is nearly impossible, even with Grammarly AI and other tools.
I have, in no way, shape, manner, or form, add any comments or remarks to these testimonies. In a place where a Hebrew word is used, you will see: (ex. by the editor: “and here will be the explanation”) or [explanation in the brackets]. That is the extent of any remarks.
I left some spoken delays, such as “um” and “uh” in. This is to show that the document is a transcript of someone speaking and bearing witness.
You will catch misspellings, wrong sentences and word usage, no capitalization, run-on sentences, misplaced periods, etc. This is not meant to be an edited piece for the NYT or a Newsletter. It is raw. It is as real as life gets. It is bearing witness.
There is usually an interviewer as well who sometimes asks questions. I have tried to put those questions into separate paragraphs to the best of my ability.
I have also included the accompanying Video of the person bearing witness at the bottom of the piece.
None of this is made up. None of this is AI. You decide.
One final point. We all put the share, comment, and subscribe buttons in our Newsletter. In this case, I am, without shame and with “chutzpah,” asking you to at least share the posts from this series on all your social networks, with all your friends, and anywhere you think it may be read. And please hit that heart at the bottom of this email to “like” it. Sharing & Likes are extremely important, and they help a great deal.
A Bit Of History On The Nir Oz Attack - The Home of the Bibas Family
Nir Oz is a kibbutz located in the Gaza envelope, less than 7 kilometers from the Gaza Strip border. On October 6, before the attack, Nir Oz was home to 427 residents. The attack on Israel started at around 6:30 a.m. Israel Summer Time (UTC+3), and by 7:00 a.m., the first Hamas militants had reached the kibbutz. Hamas was firing rockets at Israel at the time of the attack, meaning many kibbutz residents were in their safe rooms as the attack began. The kibbutz security team attempted to fight off the attack yet were outnumbered by the amount of Hamas and other militants that had entered the kibbutz. The majority of the kibbutz's security team were killed or taken hostage while attempting to defend the kibbutz. Members of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, then spent several hours in the kibbutz, killing civilians, abducting hostages, and setting fires to homes inside the kibbutz. An amateur Palestinian journalist also entered Nir Oz and recorded a live stream of the unfolding events. A surviving member of the kibbutz told reporters that allegedly Palestinian civilians from Gaza also arrived in Nir Oz to loot residents' homes. While in their safe rooms, they had reportedly heard people speaking Arabic moving around their homes after the Hamas militants had left.
The Israeli military arrived after 3:30 p.m. when all Hamas fighters had already left Nir Oz. After almost 11 hours since the start of the attack, Israel Defense Forces troops arrived and cleared the kibbutz. The surviving kibbutz members were evacuated to Eilat.
According to The Forward, 46 people were killed in the kibbutz during the attack. Hamas militants killed the Israeli-American Kedem-Siman Tov family in their secure room at the kibbutz, including three adults and three children under the age of seven. BBC Verify reported that some social media users denied that the Kedem-Siman Tov family had been killed. The killing of Bracha Levinson, an elderly woman from Nir Oz, was reportedly filmed and posted on her Facebook wall by Hamas.
It was initially assumed that a 12-year-old girl with autism named Noya Dan and her 80-year-old grandmother Carmela Dan were among the Hamas hostages. Noya Dan was reportedly a fan of Harry Potter, and author JK Rowling advocated for her release. On 19 October 2023, the bodies of both Noya and Carmela Dan were discovered by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza, near the Israeli border.
Many kibbutz residents were taken hostage during the attack. According to The Forward, 71 hostages were taken from the kibbutz, with 40 being released during the weeklong ceasefire in late November. 12 of the 13 Israeli hostages and all 11 Israeli hostages released on November 24 and November 27, respectively, were taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Prominent abductees from Nir Oz include Polish-Israeli historian Alex Dancyg and Israeli journalist Oded Lifshitz. Both men are elderly. The Bibas family was also kidnapped from Nir Oz and became prominent due to the circumstances of their abduction, with 9-month-old baby Kfir Bibas being the youngest abductee.
Some of the hostages died in captivity. On December 1, 2023, it was announced by the Israel Defense Forces that four kibbutz Nir Oz residents had died in captivity. Israeli-American-Canadian couple Judi and Gadi Haggai were believed to have been captured by Hamas and being held in Gaza. It was reported on December 28, 2023, that Judi had been fatally wounded during the attack, and her husband had been announced as deceased about a week prior. As of December 29, 2023, their bodies are still being held in Gaza.1
The Bibas Family Saga
On 7 October 2023, as part of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the Nir Oz massacre, the Palestinian Islamist militant organization Hamas abducted the Israeli-Argentinian/Peruvian Bibas family from the Nir Oz kibbutz. The youngest child, baby Kfir, was the youngest hostage taken in the October 7 attacks. Shiri's parents, abducted from their kibbutz, were later found murdered. Amidst widespread concern and a campaign for their release, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that Hamas transferred the family to a different Palestinian terror group within Gaza. Efforts to release Shiri and her children during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas were unsuccessful; Hamas later claimed that they were killed as a result of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis.
On 19 February, the IDF presented the relatives of the Bibas family with a video showing Shiri and the children while they were still alive several days after the abduction. The video was apparently filmed in southern Gaza.
Reportedly, prior to the attack, the family had been debating leaving the kibbutz and looking to move to the Golan Heights, as they were tired of the constant fear and the proximity to Gaza and the rockets.
On the day of the attack, Yarden Bibas was reportedly texting his sister to update her on the status of fighting at and around the Nir Oz Kibbutz. At around 6:30 am, he sent her an update, which included rocket fire and then that the militants had entered the kibbutz with concern that his children did not know how to keep quiet. By about 9:45, he sent "They're in" shortly after sending "I love you" to his family. Yarden had reportedly first believed that the rocket fire was "just another bombing" and had hesitated to use the gun in the home due to the number of militants with automatic weapons.
Multiple pieces of media of the family were circulated online, such as a video of Shiri holding her redheaded children in her arms, with a look of terror on her face as militants surrounded her. Multiple pictures found later showed Yarden, on the day of the attack, bleeding from the head and being herded away by gunmen.
Shiri's father, José Luis (Yossi) Silberman, and his wife, Margit Shnaider Silberman, were also presumed to be missing from the kibbutz. Margit Shnaider Silberman moved from Peru 15 years ago. José Luis (Yossi) Silberman was from Argentina. Both were in their 60s. The Silbermans were later found dead and officially identified as deceased on 21 October.
Shiri and her children were expected to be released in the multi-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that started on 24 November. Israel considered it a violation of the framework that they were not released. After the brothers were not freed during the temporary ceasefire, their relatives launched a campaign demanding their release. On 29 November, Hamas' armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said Shiri and her children had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. Israel said that Hamas' claims aren't verified and warned they could be psychological warfare. A hostage released during the multi-day ceasefire alleged that she and another hostage were approached by Hamas members and ordered to tell Yarden that his family had been killed by IDF bombing. When she refused, the militants ordered the other hostage to translate while they told Yarden and filmed his reaction, where he was allegedly coached to blame Netanyahu.
IDF chief spokesperson said, regarding the family's location, that the IDF did not believe the boys and their mother were in the hands of Hamas. Still, they consistently refused to name any other group, saying only "another group." A cousin of the Bibas family requested to speak with US President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to petition them to help release the family. He also mentioned that they were working with the Argentinian government to help petition for the release of the family. In early December 2023, per Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, all Israeli embassies and consulates either lit their buildings in orange or displayed images of the family. The display was supposed to coincide with the first lighting of Hanukkah candles.
Around Kfir Bibas's first birthday in January 2024, family members celebrated his birthday and raised awareness for the family still reportedly held as hostages. Hundreds of people gathered at the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv to celebrate Kfir and his family with a performance by Israeli children's music stars. They wore orange to symbolize the two children's hair. Kfir's picture was also seen next to Israeli President Isaac Herzog while he spoke at the World Economic Forum that same week.2
IDF releases footage of Bibas family in captivity
The family, whose red-haired children became a symbol of the movement to release the hostages, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists from their Nir Oz home on Oct. 7.
The father, Yarden Bibas, 34, too was taken hostage. The children, both red-heads, have since become a symbol of the movement to release the hostages.
Their family members saw the footage ahead of time and said that "Hamas is solely responsible for the safety of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir."
As part of its psychological warfare, Hamas earlier said that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike and published a video of Yarden heartbroken over the news of their alleged deaths.
Israel has said that it has found no evidence yet that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir had indeed been killed, although Hagari reiterated several times during the briefing that they were "very concerned" over the family's fate.
Dead or Alive? With Hamas or With Jihad?
One thing cannot be denied. The Bibas family has become the Israeli and, indeed, the universal symbol of the hostage nightmare. They have been pawns since the day they were taken, and Hamas realized how much they could play with the national Israel psychological mood.
It makes no difference to us who is actually holding them. It makes no difference to us what animals are keeping them.
It makes all the world of difference to us that they come home.
And again, I will repeat what I can now understand what Moses was feeling:
Let Our People Go!
Nir Oz massacre. (2024, January 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nir_Oz_massacre
Kidnapping of the Bibas family. (2024, February 19). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_the_Bibas_family
Thank you for keeping their stories alive. This family has captured the hearts of everyone with a heart. ❤️
These have been very important to me, from the very beginning, before I discovered your other substacks. I keep these various people--and their pictures-- "alive" daily in my mind and heart, so they don't fade as "old news." thank you.