Kidnapping and killing of the Bibas family

During the Nir Oz attack, part of the 7 October 2023 attacks that began the Gaza war, Palestinian militants kidnapped the Bibas (Hebrew: בִּיבָּס) family from their home at the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. The family, which held multiple citizenship of Israel, Argentina, and Germany, comprised 34-year-old Yarden (יַרְדֵּן), his 32-year-old wife Shiri (שִׁירִי; née Silberman), and their sons, 4-year-old Ariel (אֲרִיאֵל) and 9-month-old Kfir (כְּפִיר). All four family members were held hostage in the Gaza Strip. Yarden Bibas was abducted separately from his wife and children and held by Hamas, while Shiri Bibas and her children were reportedly held by another militant group, the Mujahideen Brigades. Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two youngest hostages taken from Israel on 7 October, came to be regarded as symbols of the Gaza war hostage crisis.

Shiri Bibas's parents, José Luis (Yossi) Silberman and Margit Shnaider Silberman, were both killed in the Nir Oz attack. In November 2023, Hamas claimed that Shiri Bibas and her children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. On 30 November, the last day of the 2023 Gaza war ceasefire, Hamas offered to return their bodies and release Yarden Bibas, but Israel insisted that all living female hostages be released first. As part of the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, Hamas released Yarden Bibas on 1 February 2025 after he had spent 484 days in captivity. On 20 February, it handed over coffins that it said contained the bodies of his wife and sons. Israel verified the remains of Ariel and Kfir Bibas through DNA testing but accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement after finding that the female remains did not match Shiri Bibas or any other Israeli hostage still held by Hamas. Hamas handed over another body the following day, which DNA testing confirmed as that of Shiri Bibas. Argentina held two days of national mourning. To mark the funeral of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas on 26 February, buildings and monuments in the Western world were illuminated in orange, the colour of the boys' hair. Shiri Bibas and her sons were buried alongside her parents in Tsoher Regional Cemetery, near their former home.

Contradicting claims by Hamas that Shiri Bibas and her children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, the Israeli government said that forensic evidence indicated that they were killed by their captors and that their corpses were mutilated to simulate injuries from a bombing. Although it did not release the evidence to the public, Israel said it had shared evidence with its international partners. Hamas accused Israel of "baseless lies".