The Bibas family says it is “in turmoil” after Hamas announced on Tuesday that Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, are among the dead hostages whose bodies will be returned to Israel this week. 

The report was relayed in a surprise statement by a Hamas leader, Khalil al-Hayya, who said on Tuesday that the terror group plans to release six living Israeli hostages on Saturday — including two Israelis who have been held in Gaza for a decade — and the bodies of four others on Thursday. The Hamas head specifically named Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, as among those whose bodies will be returned. 

Despite Hamas’s statement, however, Israeli officials have yet to provide official confirmation on the Bibas trio’s status. Until then, the family writes, “our journey is not over.”

Hamas previously claimed that Shiri and her sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike early on in the war. Israeli officials have never confirmed their deaths but expressed “grave concerns” about their wellbeing. 

The prime minister’s office established on Tuesday that the next stage of the hostage release will include the return of “four slain hostages” and “six living hostages.” The families of the hostages expected to be released alive — Omer Wenkert, Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Avera Mengistu, and Hisham al-Sayed — were informed by Israeli authorities of their loved ones’ impending return.

Mr. Al-Sayed, a Bedouin Arab Israeli, was abducted by Hamas in 2015 when he wandered into the strip. Mr. Mengistu, an Ethiopian-born Israeli, has been in Hamas captivity since 2014 when he similarly crossed the border. 

The six are the last living hostages to be freed under the ceasefire’s first phase, though Hamas was originally expected to release only three on Saturday. It’s not immediately clear why Hamas changed course. The prime minister’s office noted that four additional bodies will be handed over to Israel next week. 

Israeli media, out of respect for the families of the hostages, typically refrains from publishing the names of the dead until Israeli authorities confirm their identities.

The head of the Israeli police force’s forensics division, Lieutenant Colonel Aliza Raziel, told Israel’s Channel 12 on Tuesday that she and her team were “ready to receive the bodies and activate all existing scientific identification methods.” She noted that her team has been working since the start of the war to gather biometric data — “dental records, fingerprints, and DNA samples” — from all of the hostages “to ensure quick identification when the time came.” 

The Bibas family has become one of the most closely followed victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack after videos of their abduction from the Nir Oz kibbutz went viral online. One clip, taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7, shows a visibly distressed Shiri clutching the two red headed boys — one four years old and one just nine months old — wrapped in a blanket in her arms. Kfir was the youngest Israeli hostage taken into Gaza on October 7. 

Photos later released by Hamas showed Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the father of their two children, bloodied and surrounded by armed terrorists. Both of Shiri Bibas’s parents, who also lived on the kibbutz, were killed in the attack. 

Yarden Bibas was released from Hamas captivity alive on February 1st as part of the ceasefire and hostage exchange deal. A week after his release he issued a statement referencing his wife and two children: “Unfortunately, my family has not yet returned to me. They are still there,” he said. “My light is still there and as long as they are there, everything is dark here.” 

Israelis have remained quiet on the possibility of the Bibas trio’s death in the absence of the government’s confirmation. Lawmakers in America, however, have already begun to express outrage. “Hamas executed a mother and her two children in cold blood. This is barbarism,” the House Foreign Affairs Committee stated on Tuesday. “Israel has every right to finish the job and eradicate these terrorists from the face of the earth.”