Relatives Mark 1st Birthday of Kfir Bibas Still Held by Hamas

Stand for Israel  |  January 17, 2024

At an abandoned Nir Oz kibbutz kindergarten, family members of hostages gathered for the youngest hostage still held in Gaza to remember his first birthday—along with orange ballons to lovingly represent the child’s orange hair—reports The Times of Israel:

Kfir Bibas was almost 10 months old when he was taken with his four-year-old brother, Ariel, and their mother Shiri Bibas, 32, from their home on the kibbutz on October 7 during Hamas’s cross-border killing spree in southern Israel, and became the youngest of some 240 people dragged back to the Gaza Strip as captives. Father Yarden Bibas, 34, was taken hostage separately from the rest of the family…

On Tuesday, 102 days days after the family was abducted, the kibbutz held a ceremony for Kfir Bibas, who will mark his first birthday on Thursday as a hostage still in Gaza. He will have spent a third of his life as a captive of Hamas.

A bower of orange balloons — a nod to Kfir’s and his brother’s hair color — stood in the abandoned Nir Oz kindergarten on Tuesday, and his pictures signaled places at a table where celebrants should have sat.

“We’re marking a birthday for a kid who’s not here. We make him a cake, we put balloons, pictures, and blessings and everything and he’s not here,” Shiri’s cousin, Yosi Shnaider, told Reuters. “It’s crazy.”

Please keep Kfir Bibas and the entire Bibas family in your prayers, as well as all the hostages still held in Gaza. Pray that God may watch over them and that their safe return happens very soon.