On the way to the transference events of briefs on Saturday morning for the hostages Marden Bibas, Ofer Calderon and Keith Siegel, masked and armed terrorists of Hamas were filmed suspended on the sides of a convoy of white van, crossing Gaza City.
Watched by the Israelis while they were waiting for the release of the three hostages, the sight of these recalled vehicles, precisely as Hamas wanted, the Shabbat morning images, October 7, 2023 – when the unfathomable images of terrorists in trucks White that cross the streets of Sderot first indicated that something terrible unprecedented was happening.
Fourteen days after the first 42-day phase of the current agreement for the release of 33 hostages in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners from Israel and a cease-fire in Gaza, the Fourth set of hostage versions on Saturday has been the most heartbreaking to date.
There was no rehearsal of the despicable transfer from Thursday to Khan Younis, when Gadi Mozes, about to turn 81 years, and Arbel Yehoud, 29 vehicles of the Red Cross, in an orchestrated horror show.
Hamas Gunmen Ride Toyota Pickup Trucks via Gaza City before the release of Israeli hostages on February 1, 2025 (Reuters screenshot)
This time, Hamas has exercised absolute control over transfers. The anxiety revolved around the identity of those who are released, and specifically Yarden’s bibas, not returning to the warm embrace of his nuclear family, but to a reality so horrible that, in the words of the old MK and Kibbutz Be’eri resident Haim Jelin, “the soul cannot absorb it.”
Bibas was removed from his home on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, after going to the invading terrorists to try to save his family. He was taken to Gaza on a motorcycle, bleeding from his head, while his wife Shiri, his four -year -old son Ariel and Baby Kfir were removed separately from him and held separately from him.
In November 2023, his monstrous kidnappers told her that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir had been killed in an FDI strike – an affirmation that the FDI denounced as cruel propaganda, and never confirmed it – and forced him to film a video blaming the Israeli government so as not to be organized the return of their bodies.
Hostage Yarden Bibas, seen with a photo of his wife Shiri and young sons Ariel and Kfir, in a video he was ordered to make his captors from Hamas to Gaza, November 30, 2023.
Bibas, who was kissed on Saturday by his father Eli and his sister ofri on his return, returned home without knowing the fate of his wife and children, who appear on the list of 33 hostages released in this first phase, But who were not released in the first days, when children and living women were supposed to have been prioritized. Earlier this week, the government would have asked for information from Hamas on the status of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir; There was no word of response from the terrorists.
Revealing, while Israel protested the initial failure of Hamas to free Yehoud, a civilian woman, earlier in the sequence, he did not issue any ultimatum in Hamas with regard to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir – almost As if he was preparing Yarden, his broader family and the nation as a whole for the worst. Hamas said eight of the 33 list of phase one died, and Israel has confirmed that this information corresponds to its own.
Thus, on the morning of the Shabbat and in the afternoon, we looked at a man popular with hell jaws, the air lost when we have to stand up and wave from the Hamas scene to Khan Younis, then smiling Shortly later during his meeting with parts of certain parts of his family. And we have agonized for him for what unthinkable trauma can wait.
The armed men of Hamas flank Israeli Bibas hostage Yarden on a stage before putting it back to a Red Cross team in Khan Yunis on February 1, 2025, as part of a hostage-cesse contract. (Eyad Baba / AFP)
“A quarter of our hearts came back to us,” the Bibas family said on Saturday afternoon. “Marden returned home, but the house remains incomplete … Yarden is a father who left his security room to protect his family, courageously survived captivity and returned to an unbearable reality.”
All this, moreover, took place simultaneously with the legitimately joyful scenes of the two other hostages bringing together with their families: Keith Siegel meeting his wife Aviva, herself an old hostage and the rest of her family; OFER CALDERON kissing its four ecstatic children, two of whom had also been removed and returned in November 2023.
Released in the hostage of Oder Calderon finds his children Rotem, Gaya, Erez and Sahar on February 1, 2025. Erez and Sahar were also kidnapped on October 7, 2023 and were released in November 2023. (Ma’Ayon Taof / GPO)
Twelve other living hostages are supposed to be released in the coming weeks of the first phase. Later this week, negotiations should start seriously in phase two of the agreement, in which it is assessed that 24 additional living hostages could be returned. The price of a phase two is the total withdrawal of Gaza FDI, including the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, and a permanent cessation of hostilities.
While these negotiations take place, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in the White House to talk about the most serious meaning. In the weeks preceding his return to the office, and in his few days back in power, Trump and his impressive envoy Steve Witkoff highlighted their commitment to bring all the hostages home. They also pointed out that Hamas cannot be allowed to go up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) meets Trump Steve Witkoff’s envoy in his office in Jerusalem on January 29, 2025. (Maayan Toaf / GPO)
We do not know what Trump has in mind with his repeated insistence that Gaza needs cleaning, and that Jordan and Egypt must admire the population of an enclave where, as Witkoff said directly, “he does not There remains nothing more “, and reconstruction would be taken 10 to 15 years.
But the ecstatic -horrible combination of Saturday events – the mixture of relief and terror while the hostages and deadly terrorists have freed themselves, and as Hamas in its white trucks pointed out that it would most certainly repeat on October 7 S ‘He was able to do so – underlined the upcoming challenge.
These Israeli twin objectives of war since October 7 – bringing all the hostages home and ensuring that Hamas cannot exploit them to survive, relaunch and threaten Israel again – must both be achieved. And at the moment, after 484 days of war, Hamas, although a massively exhausted military entity, remains the only powerful force in Gaza.
Armed terrorists in Sderot, in southern Israel, having infiltrated Gaza, the morning of October 7, 2023 (screenshot; used in accordance with clause 27a of the law on copyright)
