A cousin of Shiri Bibas and her two ginger-haired children told The Post he believes the three hostages are alive after 500 days in Hamas captivity — and he “will not stop fighting” until they’re released.
“I believe they’re alive,” Yosi Shnaider said Friday of his cousin, Shiri, 33, and her children, Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 2, who became symbols of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks when video of their abduction from their southern Israel kibbutz — with the terrified mother clutching her babies — went viral.
It’s a sentiment their dad, Yarden Bibas, 35, who was released from captivity on Feb. 1, wants to believe.
“I don’t want to answer in his place, but we’re all optimistic,” Shnaider told The Post by phone from his native Israel.
The father was told while being held hostage that Shiri and the boys were killed — a claim Hamas made publicly in November 2023.
“He believed them,” said Shnaider, 46. “But he kept hope that they’re lying.”
Bibas, who returned from 16 months of hell to another hell of not knowing the fate of his family, immediately asked about his wife and children after he was released.
“We told him the truth – that we don’t know,” Shnaider said. “We have nothing.”
Israel has not been able to confirm their deaths. Further clouding the mystery, the terror group included their names on its initial list of captives to be freed.
Under the terms of the cease-fire deal, living women and children were supposed to be freed first, and the bodies of deceased hostages last – raising grave concerns about what has happened to the mom and kids.
“It’s still unclear if Hamas or another Palestinian terrorist organization is holding the rest of the Bibas family,” said Joe Truzman, senior research analyst at the DC think tank Foundation for Defending Democracy. Earlier in the war, a Hamas ally was said to be holding them.
“Hamas understands the Bibas family is very important to Israel,” he added. “It wouldn’t surprise me that a strategy Hamas would use is to keep them as long as possible to ensure that the ceasefire goes through.”
Truzman doesn’t buy reports that Hamas agreed to hand over the three bodies once Israel provides the equipment needed to excavate them from under rubble.
“Hamas has shown their statements have been inaccurate, misleading or outright false for propaganda purposes,” said Truzman.
Shnaider, a father of four whose youngest daughter is a few months younger than Ariel, said he’s putting his faith in one person to deliver his beloved family.
“Trump is the only guy who can bring them back,” he said. “Trump is doing more than anybody else. He’s our guy right now – he’s the best thing we can hope for. Thanks to him, we have this deal.”
Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, he noted, “would go inside of Gaza and take them himself if he could.”
“The only one who’s screaming right now is the US – President Trump and Witkoff,” said Shnaider. “The rest of the world is choosing to cover its ears and eyes and mouth.
“Do you know what it is to wait week after week after week for a list, and release only three every week?” Shnaider said. “Every Friday, they [Hamas] send the names of the hostages on Telegram and you wait to see if your family is going to live or not.
The relative is desperate for his family’s release.
“These are the two last children – they shouldn’t be in any negotiation. They shouldn’t be there,” he cried.
“Even if they are dead, as Jews, we have to bring them back. We need to do the burial, to mourn, to have closure. But without that, we will never stop. We will never stop fighting.”
