JERUSALEM: Former Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and children were killed while held by Gaza militants, has urged US President Donald Trump to press Israel to end the war to rescue the remaining captives.
In a first interview since being released from the Gaza Strip in February, under a truce deal that has since collapsed, Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.
“Please stop this war, and help bring all the hostages back,” Bibas said, addressing Trump in an interview with CBS News “60 Minutes” aired late Sunday.
“I know he can help,” said Bibas.
“I’m here because of Trump, I’m here only because of him, I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again.”
Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir, during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which triggered the war.
The family — and particularly four-year-old Ariel and Kfir, who was just eight months old when taken captive — became a symbol of the hostage tragedy in Israel.
Israeli authorities have accused Hamas of murdering Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas “in cold blood.”
Hamas said in November 2023 that all three were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit the location where they were being held. Their bodies were returned in February, after the father’s release.
Yarden Bibas, asked if he thought the resumed fighting in Gaza could encourage Hamas to release hostages, replied: “No.”
Israel resumed intense bombing on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued was proving effective in swaying Hamas negotiators.
Bibas told CBS News that while he was held in Gaza, Israeli bombardment was “scary, you don’t know when it’s going to happen, and when it happens, you’re afraid for your life.”
Of the 251 hostages seized during the 2023 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The truce since January saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including some who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
https://arab.news/2epw4
Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
- Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir
- Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory
Turkiye urges peaceful Syria-SDF talks, warns patience running out – foreign minister
ANKARA: Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Thursday that Turkiye did not want to resort to military action again against Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but warned that the patience of the actors involved was running out over what he described as delays in implementing an integration deal.
“We just hope that things go through dialogue, negotiations and peacefully. We don’t want to see any need to resorting to military means again. But SDF should understand the patience of the relevant actors are running out,” Fidan told an interview with TRT World.
“They should come to a place where their commitment to the agreement of 10th of March should be honored. Everybody is expecting from them to honor that agreement without any delay and without any twisting because we don’t want to see a deviation from this agreement,” he added.
