The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it was assessing a Hamas claim that the youngest Israeli hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, his brother and his mother are dead. <\/p>\n
The armed wing of Hamas said earlier Wednesday, without providing evidence, that Kfir, his 4-year-old brother, Ariel, and their mother, Shiri, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said they had been killed in earlier Israeli bombing. <\/p>\n
The IDF responded with a statement saying they were \u201cassessing the accuracy of the information.\u201d It said they had spoken to the relatives of the Bibas family and \u201care with them at this difficult time.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cHamas is wholly responsible for the security of all hostages in the Gaza Strip. Hamas must be held accountable. Hamas\u2019 actions continue to endanger the hostages, which include nine children. Hamas must immediately release our hostages,\u201d the IDF said. <\/p>\n
Minutes after the Hamas claim emerged, a senior Israeli official who was holding a briefing at the time said \u201cI hope it\u2019s not true,\u201d and \u201cwe have no indication they\u2019re murdered.\u201d <\/p>\n
In an interview with Israel\u2019s Channel 12, Jimmy Miller, Shiri\u2019s cousin, said the IDF had informed the family of Hamas\u2019 claim. <\/p>\n
\u201cHamas took them alive, Hamas is the one responsible for their health, and Hamas need to return them back to us alive. We don\u2019t care if they transferred them to someone else, or to another entity, they are (exclusively) responsible to bring them back to us alive and well,\u201d Miller said. <\/p>\n
The Bibas family later confirmed it had \u201clearned of Hamas\u2019 latest claims,\u201d according to a statement from the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are waiting for the information to be confirmed and hopefully refuted by military officials. We thank the people of Israel for their warm support, but kindly request privacy during this difficult time,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n
IDF chief spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said earlier in the week that the IDF did not believe the boys and their mother were in the hands of Hamas. <\/p>\n
There has been no Israeli bombing of Gaza since a ceasefire began on Friday morning. <\/p>\n
Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, and presumably their father Yarden were all kidnapped from Nir Oz, an Israeli kibbutz that was devastated when it came under attack by Hamas militants on October 7. The attackers murdered more than a quarter of the community and seized scores of\u00a0<\/strong>others, as they fired at people\u2019s homes, looted and destroyed what they could. <\/p>\n \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be kept like this. It\u2019s inhumane. It\u2019s so scary,\u201d said a visibly upset Keshet. <\/p>\n Holding up posters of Kfir and Ariel, he asked: \u201cAre these the enemies of Hamas? Are these the enemies of anyone? Should these children be used as bargaining chips? \u2026 There is no justification for using them like this. We just want them back, really.\u201d <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it was assessing a Hamas claim that the youngest Israeli hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, his brother and his mother are dead. The armed wing of Hamas said earlier Wednesday, without providing evidence, that Kfir, his 4-year-old brother, Ariel, and their mother, Shiri, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}