How Yarden Bibas was treated by his captors

Yarden was wounded and taken captive, and his wife and children were abducted separately.

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine

Condemned to live in dark dank tunnels for much of his nearly 500 days in captivity, frequently beaten by his guards, held for long periods in cages, at times given a daily ration of only one piece of pita, the Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas was also subject to the most diabolical psychological torture, with his captors alternately suggesting that his wife and two children had been killed — and by the IDF — or that they perhaps were still alive. More on what he endured can be found here:

“Yarden Bibas was ‘beaten and held in cages’ by Hamas terrorists,” Jewish Chronicle, February 2, 2025:

Released hostage Yarden Bibas was tormented by his Hamas captors about the fate of his wife and children during 484 days in captivity, according to reports after his release yesterday.

On the 14th day of the ceasefire-hostage deal, Yarden, 35, was released alongside Ofer Calderon, 54, in a staged handover in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.

A couple of hours later, American Israeli hostage Keith Siegel, 65, was later handed over to the Red Cross at Gaza City Airport.

Yarden, his wife Shiri 32, and their two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who, at the time, were 10 months and four years old, were taken from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas onslaught on October 7.

Yarden was wounded and taken captive, and his wife and children were abducted separately.

A video of Shiri, stricken with terror, clinging onto in terror while being abducted became one of the most widely circulated pieces of footage to emerge from the Hamas attack on southern Israel, when 1,200 people were massacred and some 250 taken hostage….

The word “massacred” does not properly convey what happened. Those 1,200 Israelis were not just massacred. They were subject to mass rapes, torture, mutilation, and then murdered.

Some were bound together with other family members and burned alive. Children were decapitated. The eyes of victims were gouged out and genitalia were cut off while the victims were still alive, and then they were killed. No, saying Israelis were “massacred” will not do.

On his release, Yarden was met by his father, Elis, and sister, Ofri, at the IDF’s Re’im camp just outside Gaza, before being flown by helicopter to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. There, he was reunited with his mother, Pnina.

A statement released by his family, who have been campaigning relentlessly, said: “Yarden is home. A quarter of our heart has returned to us after 15 long months. There are no words to describe the relief of holding Yarden in our arms, embracing him and hearing his voice.

A “quarter of our heart has returned.” Another quarter is represented by his wife, Shiri, and another by four-year-old son, and the last by Kfir, kidnapped when he was nine months old, and who is now two years old.

Yarden Bibas fought bravely to protect his family from Hamas killers on October 7, 2023. He and those he tried to protect — his wife, his four-year-old, and his nine-month-old baby Kfir — were all taken back to Gaza as hostages by the Hamas bezonians.

Now, after 484 days, Yarden Bibas is back in Israel, describing his anguish in captivity, and waiting to see if his wife and small children will be returned, alive — or dead.