JERUSALEM: Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, who was freed last week by Hamas militants in Gaza, on Friday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring back his wife and two children from the Palestinian territory.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, I’m now addressing you with my own words… bring my family back, bring my friends back, bring everyone home,“ Bibas said in his first public message following his release.
Hamas has previously declared that Shiri Bibas and the two children had been killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.
Of the 251 hostages Hamas seized in its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 76 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead, without identifying them.
The boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday fell in January, and his five-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.
Israel confirmed on Friday it had received the names of three further hostages to be released on Saturday in the next hostage-prisoner swap as part of a deal for an ongoing ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum later published the names of the three men slated for release, identifying them as Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami.
Sharabi’s wife and two daughters were killed in their home in kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel during the attack on October 7.
His brother Yossi was also taken hostage in the assault and later died in captivity, the Israeli military said in early 2024.
UK-based lawyers for Sharabi’s family called for the hostages to be returned safely during the forthcoming exchange.
“The Sharabi family has already lost too much … It is long past time to bring Eli home,“ the lawyers aid in a statement.
Levy was seized at the Nova music festival which he attended with his wife Einav Levy, who was shot dead in the attack.
Ohad Ben Ami was taken with his wife Raz Ben Ami from their home also in kibbutz Beeri. She was released during a first week-long truce in Gaza in November 2023.
