Bereaved mother of hostage says of deceased Bibas children, ‘They are just like Yotam’

Iris Haim: ‘Orange is the color of love, the orange-gold hair of the three hostages – Ariel and Kfir Bibas and Yotam Haim.’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Iris Haim, mother of Yotam Haim, who was mistakenly shot by the IDF after fleeing his captors, compared the deceased Bibas children to her son.

“The red-haired children are similar to Yotam. He was a red-haired child, exactly like them, on Kibbutz Gvulot,” she said in an interview with Channel 14.

“Orange is the color of love, the orange-gold hair of the three hostages – Ariel and Kfir Bibas and Yotam Haim,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the red-haired children who, along with their mother Shiri, became symbolic of the hostage crisis, were returned in coffins to Israel along with the body of deceased hostage Oded Lifshitz.

When Hamas released the names of the four dead hostages, relatives of the Bibas family said they had been holding out hope until the names were confirmed and criticized the press for prematurely eulogizing the Bibas family before Israel had confirmed they had been killed.

Haim said, “Yesterday, the names were published despite the family’s request not to do so. Until yesterday, I had hoped for the Bibas family.”

Speaking as a mother who lost a son hostage in Gaza, Haim said, “You don’t realize it until you see the body, and then you understand. Because I understand the family so well, I would ask that, until the last moment, no one speak about it.”

“This is a major tragedy for the country. People were devastated because they understood that these situations are becoming more complicated… Now hostages may return, alive or dead.”

Haim said the tragedy provides a kind of clarity about “how much we care for, love, and support each other.”