I just pray they come back, and I pray they come back alive.
Four Argentine citizens are named in the hostage release list: the Bibas family (parents Shiri and Yarden, children Kfir and Ariel) and Iair Horn, captured during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack. Families remain uncertain whether their relatives are alive; the Bibas children have never been seen since capture, and Hamas previously claimed they died in an Israeli airstrike without evidence.
- Four Argentine citizens named in ceasefire release: Shiri, Yarden, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, plus Iair Horn
- Kfir and Ariel Bibas were 9 months and 4 years old when seized on October 7, 2023
- No confirmed contact with the Bibas family since their capture; Hamas claimed without evidence they died in an airstrike
- Iair Horn's father Itzik received notification his son would be released, but younger son Eitan remains on no list
- Ceasefire agreement spans three phases over at least six weeks; conflict has killed over 44,000 people
A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas includes the release of 33 hostages, among them four Argentine citizens. The Bibas family and Iair Horn are expected to be freed, though their current status remains uncertain after 15 months of captivity.
A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on Saturday, names 33 hostages for release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israeli forces. Among them are four Argentine citizens who have been missing since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel. The names carry the weight of fifteen months of uncertainty: the Bibas family—parents Shiri and Yarden, and their two young sons, Kfir and Ariel—along with Iair Horn, a young man whose father has been waiting for any word of his survival.
The Bibas children were seized from the kibbutz of Nir Oz when they were barely more than infants. Kfir was nine months old; Ariel was four. They have now spent nearly their entire early lives in captivity, and no one outside their captors has laid eyes on them since that first day. Their mother, Shiri, was taken alongside them. The family's absence has become a fixture of Israeli life—their faces appear on posters, their names spoken at vigils. Yet concrete information about their condition has remained almost nonexistent. During a temporary ceasefire in late November 2023, the Israeli military believed the family was being held by militant groups other than Hamas itself. Hamas, for its part, claimed without evidence that the two children and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. Days later, the organization released a video of Yarden Bibas, the father, appearing to be under duress, blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the deaths of his wife and sons.
Yosi Shnaider, Shiri's cousin, was among the crowds gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday as the ceasefire took hold. He described the emotional turbulence of the moment: fear and hope existing simultaneously, anger and optimism tangled together. "The biggest thing I'm doing is praying," he said. "I just pray they come back, and I pray they come back alive." Jimmy Miller, another cousin, echoed the uncertainty. "We don't know anything about them. Nobody has seen them since the first day they were taken, except for that street camera footage from Khan Younis. We've heard nothing. We've seen nothing. And we're hoping for the best—that we see them alive."
The passage of time has sharpened the loss in ways that statistics cannot capture. Kfir, who was seized before his first birthday, will turn two years old soon. He has never had a birthday celebrated. No candles lit, no cake, no gifts, no father singing to him. The boy has no memory of his father's voice, no sense of what a family meal looks like, no understanding that there exists a world beyond his captors.
Iair Horn's situation carries its own anguish. His father, Itzik, received a call from an Israeli liaison officer on Saturday informing him that Iair would be among those released. But Itzik's younger son, Eitan, is not on the list. The father has had almost no information about either boy for fifteen months. The only word he received came from women who were freed during the November ceasefire—they reported seeing the boys and said they appeared uninjured, but that information is now months old. Itzik has participated in the ongoing demonstrations at what Israelis call Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, standing with other families in the same state of suspended hope. Even with the news about Iair, he remains cautious. "You're holding your breath because you don't know what can happen with an agreement involving a terrorist organization," he told CNN. "I won't be at peace until I get a phone call telling me which hospital to go to, and I see on television them being loaded into the Red Cross truck."
The ceasefire agreement unfolds in three phases over at least six weeks. The 33 hostages named in the initial announcement are expected to be released in the coming days and weeks, though the Israeli government has not confirmed how many of those named are still alive. The conflict that led to their capture has killed more than 44,000 people and created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. For the families of the Argentine hostages, the agreement offers the first real possibility of reunion after an ordeal that has reshaped their lives entirely. Yet until they see their relatives emerge, until they can embrace them and confirm they are breathing, the waiting continues.
Citações Notáveis
The only thing I want is to embrace him and tell him I love him very much. This is a movie that's been playing in my head for 15 months. This will be a long recovery for them and for us, because ultimately we've also been held captive for 15 months.— Itzik Horn, father of Iair Horn
We don't know anything about them. Nobody has seen them since the first day they were taken. We've heard nothing. We've seen nothing. And we're hoping for the best—that we see them alive.— Jimmy Miller, cousin of Shiri Bibas
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What does it mean that four Argentine citizens are on this list? Why does their nationality matter in a story about Israeli and Palestinian hostages?
It matters because these families have been isolated in their grief. Argentina is far away. The media attention in Buenos Aires has been different from what you see in Israel. These families have had to fight for their relatives to be remembered, to be included in negotiations, to be part of the conversation at all. Their nationality is a reminder that October 7 scattered people across the world.
The Bibas children—two and five years old—have been missing for fifteen months. How do you even process that as a parent?
You don't, really. You exist in a kind of suspended animation. You wake up and they're still gone. You go to bed and they're still gone. Yosi Shnaider said it clearly: he's terrified and hopeful and angry all at once. The cruelty of it is that Kfir has no memory of his life before captivity. He may not even recognize his own father.
Hamas claimed the children died in an airstrike. Then released a video of the father. What's the actual truth here?
Nobody knows. That's the unbearable part. Hamas made the claim without evidence. The Israeli military thought they were held by other groups. Then came that video of Yarden Bibas, clearly under coercion, blaming Netanyahu. It's a propaganda tool layered on top of genuine uncertainty. The families are operating in almost complete darkness.
Itzik Horn got a call saying his older son would be released, but not the younger one. How does that conversation even happen?
With a kind of cautious devastation. You're relieved and heartbroken simultaneously. You've been waiting fifteen months for any news at all, and now you get partial news. One son might come home. The other remains missing. Itzik said he won't believe it until he sees the Red Cross truck on television. He's learned not to trust hope.
What happens next? When these hostages are released, what then?
First, confirmation that they're alive. Then medical evaluation, psychological care, family reunion. But the real work—the healing—that takes years. These families have been traumatized by the uncertainty itself. Even when their relatives come home, they'll be coming home changed, and the families will be changed too. Fifteen months is a long time to carry that kind of fear.