This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Three more Israeli hostages were released Saturday as the first phase of the ceasefire continues to hold with a slow drip of captured Israelis being exchanged in a one-sided shakedown with Palestinian security prisoners. One of those released was Israeli civilian Yarden Bibas, about whose wife, Shiri and two young sons, Ariel, and Kfir, four years old and nine months, respectively, at the time of their kidnapping, there is increasing concern for their well-being.
Where other captives – whether under Hamas duress or a palpable sense of relief their release – have managed to crack a smile, Yarden Bibas looked a broken man. And if the gruesome details of his illegal incarceration are anything to go by, entirely unsurprising he seems as though the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. His father and sister welcomed him back to Israel, where he did manage to smile at the reunion. He was also reunited with his mother, although the family have said, "A quarter of our heart is back – respect his privacy." He survived captivity with "immense bravery and has now returned to an unbearable reality."
Officially, Israel is unaware of the rest of the Bibas family's condition, although the IDF has expressed "grave concern" over their fate, with effectively nothing being heard from or about them, since Hamas claimed in 2024 they died in captivity. The terrorist group likes to ratchet up the national psychological torture by suggesting they died in an airstrike or the IDF operating in the area, and Israel's demand last week for further information from Hamas either about their whereabouts or condition was stonewalled.
Yarden Bibas was forced to participate in a macabre Hamas propaganda video in November 2023, in which the psychopaths who took him, filmed his response to being told his wife and children were dead. As of February 2025 it is still not clear what has happened to his family, but the fact his captors would treat him this way is an indication of the kind of barbarity Israel is dealing with.
Indeed, there was some concern among hospital staff for Bibas' health upon his repatriation, although this was somewhat mollified when he was seen to smile. However, and without diminishing the experiences of those former hostages already released, there is an admittance his return to any semblance of psychological balance will likely be a longer road, considering the brutality of his treatment.
The stories emerging from the other hostages paint a picture of extreme deprivation of food, sunlight, and basic human needs. Hostages were frequently moved between safe houses and tunnels, with many kept in solitary confinement, and subjected to forced labor.
For the other former hostages, with the exception of Bibas, their nightmare in one sense is at an end. There are those who will rejoice knowing their partner and/or children either survived the Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7 or they were previously released in the November 2023 deal.
For others there will be pain and tears, now knowing their loved ones did not manage to escape the inferno which engulfed southern Israel on that black Sabbath. However, for Yarden Bibas, there is only uncertainty and emptiness for the family he so desperately hopes will be returned to him.
