The captors of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 terrorist attack, "brutally murdered them with their bare hands," IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Friday, rejecting Hamas’ claim that the family was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
In a Hebrew-language televised statement, Hagari emphasized that the two young boys, aged 4 and 10 months at the time of their death, were not executed by gunfire but were instead killed in an especially brutal manner by their captors, who then mutilated their bodies to conceal the crime. “The extremists committed a despicable crime, treating the helpless as ISIS did,” he said.
Hagari stressed that forensic evidence from the children's remains, combined with intelligence reports, confirmed their fate. The IDF has shared this intelligence with international partners, he added.
He also revealed that he had spoken with the boys' father, Yarden Bibas, who was himself abducted during Hamas’ October 7 attack but was released earlier this month as part of the ongoing hostage deal. “Yarden wants the entire world to know the brutal manner in which his children were murdered,” Hagari said.
Hagari further disclosed that Oded Lifshitz, 83, whose remains were returned alongside the Bibas children, was executed by his captors in the early weeks of the war. His death, along with the brutal killings of Ariel and Kfir, underscores what Hagari called Hamas' “unimaginable cruelty.”