By now I assume just about everyone reading this knows who Yarden Bibas is: his wife and two very young children were kidnapped on October 7, 2023 by Hamas, and he was kidnapped as well. We don’t know the exact history of whether they were ever kept together, but quite early on it became clear that Yarden was held in a different location than his family. He also was videoed being told his family had been killed in an Israeli strike. Other than that, Hamas has been silent on whether they’re dead or alive, and Israel says it cannot confirm their condition but is deeply concerned.

In these current exchanges, woman and children were supposed to be released first – plus, the living were supposed to be released first. Since the children and their mother have not been released, it is logical to conclude that they are in fact deceased. Not only logical, but almost certainly true. But still, there is that doubt, revolving around the fact that Hamas has not told Israeli authorities the family’s status yet, despite demands by Israel:

“Yarden is a father who left his safe room to protect his family, bravely survived captivity and returned to an unbearable reality,” [a family statement] says.

“At this time, we ask: Protect Yarden, Protect his soul. Please respect his privacy and give him the space he needs so that his body and soul can begin to recover,” the statement says.

Hamas has claimed that Shiri and the boys were killed in Gaza, but Israel has had no definite proof and has demanded information from Hamas through the mediators.

My question is: why isn’t Hamas telling? Possible answers:

(1) The better to torture the family and all who have been following the story.
(2) The better to get additional huge concessions from Israel later, either for the information, for the living family, or for their bodies. The Bibas family are their prize captives.
(3) The circumstances of their deaths implicate Hamas in some extra way – in addition, of course, to the outrage of the kidnapping in the first place. And so they’re stalling.
(4) They cannot find them.
(5) They are planning some elaborate and ghoulish “reveal.”