Littlest victims of war: The faces of Israeli child hostages in Hamas slaughter
Heartbreaking accounts are emerging of the scores of children who were taken captive by Hamas when the terrorist group unleashed its unprecedented assault over the weekend — and the innocent kids thought to be in the attackers’ hands are as young as 9 months old.
Loved ones in Israel and abroad are now scrambling for answers, and – in the wake of Hamas’ pledge to execute one hostage for every Israeli airstrike that hits a Gazan home – are begging the abductors to spare the youngest lives.
The terror group, meanwhile, claims to have stockpiled “dozens” of captives in “safe places and tunnels and resistance” over the border in Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeid said in a Telegram post.
Below, are the stories of some of the youngest hostages who are believed to be in Hamas custody – and whose ultimate fates remain unknown.
Ariel and Kfir Bibas
A brief video making the rounds on social media shows kindergarten teacher Shiri Shiri Silberman-Bibas clutching her sons – Ariel, 3, and 9-month-old Kfir – as the family is abducted by Hamas from their kibbutz in southern Israel Saturday.
The family – including husband and father Yarden Bibas – was hunkering down in a safe room when the terrorists descended.
“I couldn’t believe the picture,” Silberman-Bibas’ cousin, Yossi Sneider, told the BBC of the harrowing footage.
“They’ve taken them without any food, without any diapers, without anything,” he said of the two young boys.
“We only hope that they didn’t separate them from their mother.”
Silberman-Bibas’ husband, Yarden, and her parents have also been missing since Saturday.
Raz and Aviv Asher
Five-year-old Raz and 3-year-old Aviv Asher are believed to have been taken hostage alongside their mother, Doron Asher Katz, and their grandmother, heartbroken dad Yoni Asher told the New York Times.
The girls and their mom were visiting their grandmother’s village in southern Israel when Hamas closed in, Asher explained.
“She told me, ‘There are terrorists inside the house,’” he recalled of his wife’s panicked, whispered phone call early Saturday.
Asher thinks he recognized his wife, daughters, and mother-in-law in a video of hostages being bundled in the back of a pickup truck, he told the Times.
“I can’t sleep — I’m living outside my own body,” Asher said.
“I have two little babies, two little girls. These little babies should not be held or kept by terrorists.”
Dafna and Ella
Divorced mom of two Mayyan Zin learned her daughters – Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8 – were abducted by Hamas when a relative sent her photos on Telegram of the girls sitting on mattresses, apparently in captivity.
Zin later found a video of gunmen breaking into her ex-husband’s home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz while her sobbing children looked on.
Later, a second video showed the father being taken across the border into Gaza.
“Just bring my daughters home and to their family. All the people,” Zin begged.
Yahel Neri Shoham, Haveh Shoham, Noam Avigdori
Eleven members of Israeli lawyer Shaked Haran’s family – including three children between 3 and 12 years old – have been missing since Hamas stormed their home at Kibbutz Be’eri early Saturday, a close friend told The Post Tuesday.
In addition to her parents, sister, and brother-in-law, Haran’s nieces Yahel Neri Shoham, 3; Naveh Shoham, 8; and 12-year-old Noam Avigdori, are believed to have been brought into Gaza.
The three young girls also have German citizenship.
“Someone picked up one of the phones in Arabic-accented Hebrew and said something along the lines of ‘Kidnapped’ and “Gaza’ and hung up,” family friend Rachel Gur told The Post of the family’s last communication from their missing loved ones.
Sahar and Erez Kalderon and Noya Dan
Siblings Sahar and Erez Kalderon and their cousin Noya Dan were violently taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz Saturday alongside their father and uncle and their grandmother, older sister Gaya Kalderon said.
A heartbreaking video shows Erez, 12, looking distressed while being manhandled by Hamas gunmen near a barbed wire fence.
“It was so hard to watch… I never felt like this, I don’t even have tears anymore in my eyes, I can’t cry because I cried so much,” Gaya – who was in Tel Aviv at the time of the attack – said of the footage.
“He had his pajamas on, he just woke up in the middle of the night and someone came and took him.”
Shortly before terrorists stormed their home, Gaya said Sahar, 16, texted “Mom I love you” in the family’s group message.
“I knew it is probably because she knows it is the end or something,” she said of the haunting final text.
Ofer, Sahar, and Erez were taken from one home, while grandmother Carmela, 80, and cousin Noya, 13, were abducted from another house nearby, Gaya explained.
Gaya’s mother and older brother were in another home, and were not taken.
“We just need them back. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have a home anymore, it is all burned, I just need them back,” the 21-year-old said of her missing family members.
Brothers, ages 16 and 12
One desperate Israeli mother – who requested not to be identified for security reasons – says her 12- and 16-year-old sons were abducted by Hamas while on the phone with her, ABC News reported.
She has been unable to sleep or eat since around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, when her sons called her from their father’s home on a kibbutz near the Gaza border, the woman told ABC’s Linsey Davis.
The boys were home alone, and called their mother from a safe room, she explained.
“I was on the phone to them every few minutes. Somewhere around half past 8:00 [a.m.], they started saying that they were hearing gunshots outside the house. I tried to calm them down, telling them it’s probably the army or our people shooting,” she recalled.
Eventually, she said, the boys told her that they think they heard someone breaking into the house.”
“It took another 10 minutes or so, and I could hear two or three people speaking in Arabic outside the door getting in,” the mother said. “My youngest, who’s only 12, [was] saying to them, ‘Don’t take me, I’m too young.’ That was it. The line cut off. That was the last time I heard from them.”
The mother is now living in a nightmare.
“They were taken from their homes, from their beds, by barbarians. I can’t really find another word for it,” she said of her sons’ abduction.
She later learned from another video that the boys’ father and his girlfriend were also taken.
“I’m only hoping that they’re together now,” she said.
With Post wires
