“You are sweet, sweet. I love you so much,” Yarden Bibas’s father told his son when he met him at the meeting spot across the Gaza border this past Saturday. There to greet 34-year-old Yarden was also his sister, Ofri. On their helicopter ride together, Yarden held up a public message full of that sweetness: “I thank the people of Israel for their support and help. I heard from my family that you fought for me and I want to say thank you. I appreciate it so much and I don’t take it for granted.”
“Happy birthday, Grandpa,” he added, for his grandfather who turned 90 that same day. Later, at a medical center, he hugged his mother Pnina who wept in her son’s arms.
Despite Yarden’s sweetness, the reunion itself was bittersweet, so different from the sights of the release of two other hostages set free that day thanks to a ceasefire deal, Ofer Kalderon, 52, of Nir Oz, and Keith Siegel, 65, of Kfar Aza. Both Ofer and Keith got to hold their children and rejoice about their personal fights being over. But Yarden and the entire Bibas family still don’t know the fates of his wife, Shiri, and their two young children, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 2, who are still being held in Gaza and have become among the most prominent faces of the hostage crisis. Hamas announced back in November or 2023 that they had been killed, but Israeli authorities were never able to confirm that information. This week, they asked for more details about their condition.
In a message to the public, the Bibas family acknowledged the complexity of this day: “Yarden is home. A quarter of our hearts is back after 15 long months. There are no words to describe the feeling of relief at holding Yarden in our arms, holding him and hearing his voice. Yarden is back home, but our home is missing. Yarden is a father who left the safe room to protect his family, bravely survived captivity and returned to an unbearable reality. We ask now: Protect Yarden. Protect his soul. Respect his privacy and give him the space he needs so that his soul and body can recover a little.”
The family finished their message with profound gratitude to all those who fought for his return, and vowed to rejoin them in their fight to bring the rest of their family and all the remaining hostages home.
ירדן ביבס התאחד עם הוריו פנינה ואלי ואחותו עופרי בשיבא
צילום: עומר מירן; מעיין טואף / לע"מ pic.twitter.com/3kuK0CkJHb
— Heedo Abu Laban • عبد الحميد • חידו אבו לבן (@HeedoAbuLaban) February 1, 2025
Meanwhile, two other fathers got to reunite with their daughters and sons, and videos of those reunions are full of laughter and song. Ofer Kalderon once again got to see his daughter Sahar and son Erez, who were both held hostage apart from him and set free in that first ceasefire deal in November of 2023. With a sweet smile, Kalderon couldn’t help but joke with his loved ones when he finally reunited with them in the hospital. On the van over, he asked to make a brief stop to triumphantly wave at a group of friends who were waiting outside the medical center — the Smurfs, his bike-riding group, who were holding onto a bike for him.
תמונת הנצחון של עופר קלדרון. יוצא מהואן בדרך למחלקת השבים בשיבא כדי לנופף לחבריו מקבוצת הרכיבה הדרדסים
צילום צחי אביב pic.twitter.com/LK5cTs2uZp— מיטל יסעור (@MaytalYasur) February 1, 2025
Kalderon traveled to the hospital alone, but all his loved ones were waiting for him there, including his four children. Sahar said that the last thing her father asked her was to help him get out of there and not die in the tunnels in Gaza. “It’s over, Dad,” Sahar and Erez told their father. Sahar said, “I told you I would save you,” and Erez added, “You did it, you survived.”
Pretty soon, Ofer, known for being a jester, brought out his signature humor. “They told me how you ran away, you little bastard,” he joked at his son. “Our bush wasn’t good enough. They beat us at our game of hide and seek.”
"כולנו בסדר אבא": רגעי המפגש המרגשים של עופר קלדרון עם ילדיו – "תתכונן, אני לוקח אותך לשבוע של חישול, נרכב על אופניים לכל מקום" pic.twitter.com/M4HdDwWlTt
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) February 1, 2025
Ofer told his youngest son to get ready for a week-long bike ride bootcamp. Ofer also has some homework to do upon his return — his son, Erez, who had his bar mitzvah without his dad while he was being held hostage, left some prayers for him to say to help the ceremony feel complete.
Next came the man who helped hold his brother’s place during that bittersweet coming-of-age event, Ofer’s brother Nitzvan. He, along with his wife Sharon, fought tirelessly to bring Ofer back. Their reunion was an unforgettable one, two brothers both so worried about the other.
“I’m OK, I’m OK,” Ofer kept repeating to his sibling. “I was scared that something happened to you, but you are OK.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ofer vowed, and Nitzan responded, “You’re not leaving me to go anywhere.”
עופר קלדרון פוגש בשיבא את אחיו ניסן, שלא הפסיק להילחם למענו. ניסן אתה מלךךךךךךך, אתה אח שכל אחד היה רוצה. כמה מגיע לך pic.twitter.com/WxYgIGL60E
— Raz Shechnik (@RazShechnik) February 1, 2025
“Nitzan, are you crying? Finally, you’re crying,” Ofer then jested. When his brother told him how much he loved him, he replied, “I had to go all the way to Gaza for you to tell me that?!” In a later interview, Nitzan urged everyone to tell their loved ones that they love them more, saying, “It gives them strength.”
Ofer himself finally broke down when he saw Ella, his partner for the last three years, who walked into the hospital room after those first two reunions. He hugged her and kissed her and allowed himself the tears he tried to hold back with his kids. “I am here,” he told her.
החיבוק הראשון של עופר קלדרון עם בת זוגו: "אני פה"@maya_aidan pic.twitter.com/7f6vGdKD4f
— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) February 1, 2025
Across Israel, many people started their Saturday morning this past weekend with pancakes — made from a recipe that Shir Siegel, Keith Siegel’s youngest daughter, shared on Instagram as one of the many ways to draw attention to his plight. Her mother, Aviva, was held with him that first month in captivity and came back with tales full of horror. Aviva had been waiting for over 400 days to reunite with the man she fell in love with when she was 18 and first noticed him at her kibbutz — she couldn’t stop staring and him, she recalled in a testimony, and now, finally, she gets to look at his beloved face again.
“The big day is here, Shirkush,” she told her daughter as she started the journey to reunite with Keith. “I am happy, happy, there is no happier person than I am.” In the car with her to meet Keith at the first checkpoint was their son, Shai, who Aviv and Keith both thought had been killed in their early days of captivity in Gaza. While Aviva and Shai made their way to the Gaza border, Shir watched the video of his release in the hospital with her friend Emily Damari, who asked her Hamas captors to let Keith be released instead of her the previous week to no avail.
משפחתו של קית׳ סיגל הכינה את הפנקייקים האהובים עליו וחילקה במחלקות השונות בביה״ח איכילוב (ישראל כהן)
המבזק החברתי: https://t.co/3ChEFVCyJl pic.twitter.com/ybFaAOUOmd
— המבזק החברתי (@MivzakHervrati) February 3, 2025
Later on at the hospital, Shir and her two sisters waited to see their beloved father come around the hallway on his way to them. “Here comes Abba to us, and to everyone,” the three girls sang to the tune of the song “Salaam” by the band Sheva. “You champion,” the girls told him and he replied, “You’re champions.” Keith then go to hug his brother, Lee, who was waiting there for him as well. The two lost their mother, who lived in the U.S., while Keith was being held in Gaza. In interviews, Aviva said that her family tried to hide Keith’s captivity from her.
קית' סיגל מלווה באשתו אביבה במפגש ראשון ומרגש עם בנותיו: אילן, גל ושיר; ואחיו לי, בבית החולים איכילוב.
"אבא שלנו חזרת אלינו, איזה אלוף ששרדת!"
וידאו: עוז שכטר / לע"מ pic.twitter.com/JgX3E1jzEi
— National Public Diplomacy Directorate (@NationalHasbara) February 1, 2025
Aviva and Keith’s grandchildren cooked up pancakes on a hot plate in the hospital and served them to everyone there. Shir got to share some happy news — he would get to be at her wedding, which she held off for almost 500 days while waiting for his return.
Lee, Shir and Aviva held a press conference later, where Shir wore a shirt with the names of the two hostages from Kfar Aza still being held in Gaza, twins Gali and Zivi, and spoke of the difficult conditions her father was held under. “My father spent 483 days knowing that any moment could be his last,” she said, extending her apologies to all the civilians, soldiers and security personnel who sacrificed their lives so that her dad could return.
“There are still 79 hostages in Gaza. They all deserve to get home,” Aviva added. “All their families deserve to feel the way we feel now.”
We pray that they do, and that Yarden Bibas gets the joyful reunion he deserves, too.
