Home
This house is just a building. It is not mine, we did not buy it, and what remains of it belongs to Nir Oz. It is not my home. My home was the kibbutz, the friends and the community. I was not born here, but I lived here for the last four years. Shiri was born here, and here the two of us learned to be parents, a family. Here Ariel learned to walk and talk, here he told his first joke. Here he became a big brother when Kfir was born. There are more good memories in this house than I can describe.
I sit on the couch, in my corner where I always sat. Almost two years have passed since I sat here, and I can still see the house as it was on Oct. 6, only this time it is not clean and not tidy, and this time there is a big bloodstain from Tony, our dog, on the floor. The couch Shiri sat on, where I used to rest my head on her lap, is perforated by bullets. Kfir’s trampoline is abandoned outside the house and dirty. Ariel’s sandbox is full of things I do not recognize. His new bike was stolen just when I had started teaching him to ride without training wheels. I did not get to teach him that, but the memory remains.
I am at home, in a place I know and do not know, one that has turned from familiar to foreign. Entering it now feels like my entire life - nothing like what I knew. They too have become messy, stained with blood, sad. It no longer feels like a home, the feeling here is dark.
Among the rubble, after the terror tornado this house went through, I find things. Like this napkin I hold in my hand that easily could have been thrown away or vanished into the cracks. An orange napkin from our wedding. It has shards from the cup I broke under the chuppah. We kept them, planned to make something of them, but we never had time.
I am at home, in a place I know and do not know, one that has turned from familiar to foreign. Entering it now feels like my whole life - nothing like what I knew. They too have become messy, stained with blood, sad. It no longer feels like a home, the feeling here is dark. From a house of joy and laughter it has become cold and painful. And it is quiet. Not the good quiet we loved, but a bad quiet, the kind of terror quiet. I have not come in here much. It is hard for me. There were times I was at the kibbutz but did not enter the house. I know that every time I go in, I do not know what I might discover. Kfir’s diaper basket. Ariel’s toy car. A dusty photo album under the sideboard.
Like packing things when you move to another house, I pack memories. I decide what I will take with me and what I am willing to leave behind. Items with bullet holes or blood, or anything that reminds me of Oct. 7, I do not take. I do not want to hurt the good memory. Over the years I fear it will disappear.
I kissed Shiri, Kfir and Ariel, I told them I loved them more than anything in the world, always and forever. I told myself they were going to execute me outside, and I entered a kind of euphoria. My whole body felt light. I was not afraid. In a moment I will die.
I will donate the children’s blue chairs. I will also give Shiri’s art supplies that we bought to do activities with Ariel to other children who can play and create. I will take some of the boys’ dolls. Objects have no value except for the memory that comes with them. Every object floods me with a happy memory, and every object I cannot find is a memory taken from me. I look some more. Shiri’s dresses. Ariel’s costumes.
In captivity, when Nimrod Cohen was with me, Nimrod, who is still there, we spoke a lot about holidays. A memory of Ariel dressed as a dinosaur came up then, before his Batman phase. Shiri sent me the video from the kindergarten. Each child went up on stage and presented their costume. His first costume was a carrot. The second was the baby on the Bamba package. When I talked about it with Nimrod, the video kept playing in my head and for three days I did not stop crying.
The last kiss
Once Shiri and I had a little fight, and that morning when I left for work I kissed Ariel and Kfir. I was angry. On my way she called me crying and angry and said, "No matter what happened, and no matter what we argued about, you must not leave the house without giving me a kiss." I felt really bad that I left like that. I agreed immediately and apologized. All day I felt bad and guilty, and when I came home from work I hugged and kissed her without stopping and promised her it would not happen again.
They pulled me out of the safe room, Ariel’s room, which was beautiful and innocent, full of toys, experiences, stories. Now it is sad and cold. Here we were all together for the last time. Here we parted ways. It was the end of the Bibas family.
On Oct. 7, before the terrorists managed to break into our house, we heard them drilling at our front door. I looked at Shiri and asked her, "Fight or surrender?" She told me, "Fight." Earlier, when talk of an infiltration started in the kibbutz, I had already brought the pistol and an extra magazine. I opened the safe room door, aimed toward the door they were drilling and began to shoot. When they managed to enter the house through the bedroom window, they began shooting back. During the gunfight I saw their bullets penetrate the safe room door, like it was made of butter, toward Ariel’s bed, where we had asked him to hide. I told Shiri, "I have to surrender, they are shooting toward Ariel, I do not want him to get hurt."
I placed the pistol and the magazine on the small table in the room, I lay down on the floor and shouted, "Enough, enough, there are children here." In Hebrew, in English, hoping they would understand something. Then they entered the safe room. They kicked me while I was on the floor, and when they pulled me up, one of them motioned for me to go outside. I pointed at Shiri and the boys and said, "Not them," and he nodded "no." I pointed at them again and said, "Not them." The terrorist pointed at me and told me, "Only you, come on."
I signaled with my hands if I could give a kiss before I left. He nodded "yes," "come on, come on." I went to Shiri and told her they had come to abduct us, that they do not take women and children. "It will be fine, I will go with them so they will not hurt you and I will not make trouble," and Shiri was afraid, holding herself back from crying.
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“Every time I enter the house, I know I don’t know what I might find”
(Photo: Ziv Koren)
I kissed Shiri, Kfir and Ariel, I told them I loved them more than anything in the world, always and forever. I told myself in my head they would execute me outside, and I entered a kind of euphoria. My whole body felt light. I was not afraid. At every step of the way to Gaza I said, here it comes. When they took me out of the house, here on the grass, during the lynching, I thought I was about to die. Before they shoved me into the tunnel, they shone a flashlight on the body of a man who looked like he had been dead for quite some time. Son of a bitch, do you want to kill me next to this disgusting thing? That is what flashed through my mind. He only said to me again "come on, come on" and pushed me toward the tunnel opening. Then I understood they wanted me alive. I thought of Shiri and the children and told myself they would take them to a safe place, they would wait for me. I would come out and we would overcome everything, Ariel would get through it with our help, Kfir would probably not remember too much because he was a baby. Everything was small compared to us. If I had known this would be the last time, maybe I would have kissed more, kissed again. Today I understand how meaningful that kiss was. the last kiss. Shiri, I never left the house without giving you a kiss.
They dragged me out of the safe room, Ariel’s room. The room that was beautiful and innocent, full of toys, experiences, stories. That morning it was our fortress, and now it is simply a sad and aching room. Without Ariel and Kfir’s laughter. Here we were all together for the last time, the whole family. That was the last time I saw them, and here we parted ways. It was the end of the Bibas family.
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Holding the shards of the wedding glass, Yarden at the entrance to the house
(Photo: Ziv Koren)
The happiest woman in the world
When they say "the Bibas family," the first image that comes to mind is the picture of Shiri and the children at the moment of the abduction. If there is anything I would like people to know, it is that Shiri was not like that. She was not the frightened, pale woman everyone saw. Shiri was the happiest woman in the world. A woman who loved to dance, to be part of organizing activities and to take part in holiday events. She loved the kibbutz, the community, the friends. Shiri was the perfect partner for me and an amazing mother.
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The happiest woman in the world. Shiri and Yarden on their wedding day
(Photo:Bar Madmon)
She put up with my nonsense and craziness. She even compromised with me: "the Cummins flag"(the Dodge Ram engine flag)would not be in the living room, but it would hang in Ariel’s room. I met Shiri several years before we became a couple. On Purim, David and Eitan invited me to dinner with the whole Cunio family. They talked about Shiri and about how she was single and looked at me. I told them there was no chance, she would not look my way. They said, "No way," and that she was always happy to see me. I was always happy to see her too, but I was shy and did not dare to approach her. That is how it was—on one hand David pushed me, and on the other Sharon pushed Shiri—a nudge from both sides so someone would finally make the move. That evening we went for a walk in the kibbutz and that is where it all began.
Every abductee and captive has a family. I too want to do very bad things to Hamas, things that would make the Saw films look like Disney films, but that will not bring back the family I lost. The other abductees and captives, the living and the fallen, still need to be brought back.
Shiri was from kibbutz Nir Oz. Her parents lived there. We were close to them, even physically within walking distance. Margit and Yossi were ideal grandparents; they spent a lot of time with their grandchildren and helped us when we needed them. They hosted us for dinners and barbecues with Dana my sister-in-law and her family. On Oct. 6, when we returned from Friday dinner at Dana’s, we asked Grandma Margit to watch the children and we went to the kibbutz pub. There we met Grandpa Yossi, and Yair Horn who worked there and always smiled at everyone who came in. The next morning, Margit and Yossi were murdered.
I loved Shiri’s relationship with my parents, Pnina and Eli, and Edna my father’s wife. They too were wonderful grandparents. Shiri always felt comfortable and natural with them. She could send me a message: "My throat is starting to hurt, stop by your mom’s, she made me chicken soup" and my mother would always ask later about the food containers, and Shiri would tell me to say they were not at our place and that we had already returned them, simply because she wanted to keep them at our house. We loved making small, modest birthday celebrations at the kibbutz pub with the whole family. My father and Edna would come, my mother, Yossi and Margit, Dana and Elad and the children, and close friends. Small and family-oriented, just the way we liked it.
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Ariel and Kfir. ‘I wanted to be the kind of dad who goes along with his boys’ nonsense.’
Before we moved into this house, Shiri came to see it and filmed it for me, an empty house after renovation. I was quite disappointed and told her, "Shiri, the house is small. It is nothing, isn’t there something a bit bigger with more space?" Shiri said, "We will make this house a home, we will turn it into that." And that is what happened. We furnished it. At first we did not even have a refrigerator, just a cooler with ice. We sat on mattresses until we bought a couch. But we made it. We turned this building into a warm, loving, family home. Our home.
Whenever we talked about home, Shiri would say something that stays with me. She said she wanted a house that is not too big and not too small, but a home warm enough that the warmth would remain inside. A home that would feel warm without cold parts. Our house did not have a lot of room for entertaining, but that did not prevent us from inviting my sister Ofri and my brother-in-law David and the nieces for dinners or just a hangout. I miss seeing Ariel and Kfir play on the grass or with hand paints in the yard. In captivity I told myself we were lucky Ofri and David left Kibbutz Reim a month before Oct. 7. I miss sitting on a mat on the grass with Kfir, seeing Tony lying in the sun soaking it up and having thorns under me in case a cat passed by. He did not come when we called him, but he was a good dog and he protected the children.
In captivity, the thought of Shiri and the children kept me going. I thought as long as they were okay and waiting for me, I would be okay too.
My sons
I wanted to be a dad who went along with his sons’ nonsense, and I loved doing that. When Ariel wanted to go to kindergarten in costume, I said fine. We let him express himself his way. Shiri always laughed at me for being like a helicopter, hovering over Ariel, circling him and watching over him.
If life is a race, Shiri and the children were my finish line. They were my victory in the world. They were the fulfillment of my dream to be a husband and a father. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I feel is absence. I had everything, and I lost everything. This journey is over and all I have left from it is memory. I cannot see beyond tomorrow. But I chose life, and at my own pace, slowly, maybe I will see the day after tomorrow.
The first meeting between Ariel and Kfir was so natural. I went to get Ariel from kindergarten and Shiri was waiting at home. He knew he would meet his brother that day and he was so excited. At the entrance to the house there was a sign our friends, the Cunios, made for us: welcome. Ariel approached the door, saw it and asked, what is here? I told him: our friends the Cunios made a sign for us. Then Shiri opened the door, hugging and joyful. When they met, Ariel gently rested his head on Kfir. He hugged him. He stroked his tiny feet.
From the beginning Ariel was a big brother who just wanted to give to Kfir and share with him. He did not envy the attention the newborn got. He was simply happy and independent and ran around the house and jumped on Shiri when she was on the couch and pushed his stroller everywhere. The whole kibbutz was one big playground for him. The lawns, the paths, the friends.
From every corner memories flood me. My father once came to install an air conditioner in Ariel’s room, bringing his toolbox and setting it on the floor in the room. Ariel also brought his toy toolbox. My father took out a screwdriver and Ariel took his out after him. My father took out a drill and Ariel took his drill. I told my father, how is it that Ariel has more tools than I do?
Ariel loved soldiers. He always got excited when he saw them, and was also a little shy. When I see soldiers, I have the same excitement and shyness that he had. They are heroes, every soldier. They protect us, leave everything and fight.
A regular morning, I get up early to go to work. I return from a walk with Tony and Shiri asks me to watch Kfir who just woke up. Kfir plays with an empty wipes pack and laughs, and Shiri shouts at me, "Stop waking him up, I want to go back to sleep," and I say, "It is not me, it is him." That is one of the sweetest memories I have, the empty wipes pack. The more important a memory is to me, the more I fear losing it.
After the video they filmed of me and after they told me about Shiri and my boys, I asked to be moved to where David was. For the second time in our lives, after he slept beside me before the wedding with Shiri, we slept together. One beside the other, under the same blanket. After a period they separated us into two groups.
Before Oct. 7 I worked two jobs and came home late. Sometimes I managed to sit with Ariel a little before he fell asleep but most of the time I returned after the boys had gone to bed. I so wanted them to lack nothing and there was not enough time. It will always be hard for me. I also have too few photos. I was sure I could recover those that were on the phone, but then I discovered I did not back them up properly. Since I realized they are gone, something in my memory will not let go. I am afraid of forgetting.
If life is a race, Shiri and the children were my finish line. They were my victory in the world. They were the fulfillment of my dream to be a husband and a father. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I feel is absence. I had everything, and I lost everything. This journey is over and all I have left from it is memory. I cannot see beyond tomorrow. But I chose life, and at my own pace, slowly, maybe I will see the day after tomorrow.
I miss the sound of Ariel playing in his room, the sight of him running between the rooms, ginger, looking like Chucky and climbing on the bed to lie between me and Shiri. I miss Kfir’s laugh, the sound of his toy. Tony’s sounds when he walked in the house. Shiri and my conversations, her voice saying, "Yarden, turn over, you are snoring." The house was small in size but enormous in what it contained—memories have no volume and it contained so many of them. I remember seeing him strolling with the twins in the pram and going out to him and we would talk and arrange to meet in the evening at his place or Eitan’s for coffee or a beer to talk about everything and mostly about nonsense. "Simple lives," on the surface. Everywhere I go I carry the absence of David and Ariel. With longing and worry.
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Yarden Bibas and his sister Ofri in the yard of their home in Nir Oz
(Photo: Ziv Koren)
David
I remember moments with David in captivity when we met in the tunnel. When I saw David there for the first time I got up from the mattress I sat on and we embraced. A very strong hug. He told me that when he first saw me he thought he was looking at a ghost because he was sure I had been killed in the safe room. He was angry about being separated from Sharon, about them taking him away from his childhood, and not knowing where they were taking him. I tried to strengthen him, he tried to strengthen me. After the video they filmed and after they told me about Shiri and my boys, when I asked to move to him, for the second time in our lives we slept together. One beside the other, under the same blanket.
After a while they separated us into two groups. David and I asked to stay together but they did not agree. Sometimes when we moved from place to place through the tunnels we passed each other. We hugged. We strengthened each other as much as we could, and we continued. David and Ariel, it is hard that you cannot pick up the phone, send a message, ask "Coffee?" or simply send that coffee cup emoji. Something so simple. When Eitan and I meet today, we look at each other and without words feel the lack, the brothers and the friends. If once our conversations were light, today they are very heavy, about politics, about war. About worrying for brothers who are still in captivity.
I will never get over the loss of Shiri and the boys, but I am here trying to recover. David, Ariel and the other captives deserve to return home and at least try to rehabilitate. The fallen deserve a proper burial.
Community
The community you live with in a kibbutz is an inseparable part of home. It comes with the house. Even if I was not very active and involved in it, I still felt part of it.
I remember one of the COVID lockdowns on New Year’s Eve when it was forbidden to leave the house and meet others. There was an initiative for everyone to stay in their yard and they played music on the large lawn by the dining hall so it could be heard throughout the kibbutz. Yair Horn and another kibbutz member drove around in a truck with a beer barrel and poured. It was a big party of many small parties. Shiri and I were in the yard lying on the grass. I put my head on Tony, Shiri put her head on me, and Ariel’s monitor was beside us. The kibbutz is more than a fenced group of houses surrounded by vegetation. It is the community. And the community is the people in it.
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We had just started learning to ride without training wheels. I won’t get to see that
(Photo: Ziv Koren)
Shiri and I walk the paths and occasionally meet Arbel and Ariel who skateboarded, we walk the same way until each of us turns toward our direction. Taking out the trash sometimes became a social encounter. Pumi, Eitan’s dog, would scratch at our door, come in, greet Tony, drink from his water, eat from his food and leave. That was the sign of autumn and that Eitan had gone out walking with his daughters and we would join them and walk together, meet more people on the way, stop at the playground and sit on the grass. In the evening, if Shiri had a long day and was tired I would pop over to Eitan or David for coffee. We would decide where to meet and send a message to Ariel. Lucas would come with one of his boys on his electric bike. Luis would sometimes join. A small coffee turned into a gathering of friends and family, friends who became family.
I remember moments with David in captivity, when we met in the tunnel. When I saw David there for the first time I got up from the mattress I sat on and we embraced. A very strong hug. He told me that when he saw me he thought he was looking at a ghost because he was sure I had been killed in the safe room.
He was angry about being separated from Sharon, about them taking him from childhood, and he did not know where they were taking him. In the kibbutz the air is clean, and the quiet is hard to explain. There was a sense of rest and calm. And yet we bought a large enough car so we could evacuate quickly if needed, and my pistol was always within reach. There were thoughts and vigilance, and we did not forget where we live.
I return from Friday shopping with flowers for Shiri. When I approach the house I already start smiling because I know that if my neighbor Ofir, Shagig Dekel Chen’s sister, is outside and sees me she will embarrass me, which of course she did.
Yossi the neighbor, Ofir’s husband, Ariel’s "partner," sees him and calls out to him, "A-riel, what’s up my partner," and they bump fists. Nir Adar, Tamir Adar’s brother who is still in Gaza, Ariel played with his daughter Rani on the lawn outside our house and sometimes he brought us breads and spreads from his shop or just chatted. Itzik Algrit, of blessed memory, who worked in the kibbutz infrastructure insisted on fixing a small water burst outside our house on Friday even though I did not think it was urgent. Itzik said, "There should not be a puddle of mud, there should be no dirt."
That was our row of houses—Elgarat, us, Nir Adar and Ofir and Yossi. When I came back from captivity I heard something for the first time—the statistic that one in four in Nir Oz was kidnapped or murdered. To this day that phrase "one in four in Nir Oz" shocks me.
Heroes
Ariel loved soldiers. He always got excited when he saw them, and was also a little shy. When I see soldiers, I have the same excitement and shyness he had. They are heroes, every soldier and female soldier of ours. I want to adopt that gratitude for soldiers. Like in the United States where they say to service members, "Thank you for your service," I think we should also express that appreciation here to those serving in active duty and reserves for their service and heroism.
They deserve all the appreciation and support. They fought and continue to fight for the country, and now the country needs to fight for them. I want to ask every soldier: look after yourselves. Come home in peace. In captivity there were moments when I told myself that when I get out of here and return to Shiri and the children we will leave the country. After seeing the number of terrorists who entered Nir Oz on Oct. 7, I could not feel safe. But at the same time I told myself, "You are not going anywhere." He only said to me again "come on, come on" and pushed me into the tunnel opening. Then I understood they wanted me alive. I thought of Shiri and the children and told myself they would be taken to a safe place and wait for me. I would come out and we would overcome everything. Everything is small compared to us.
In the end there is nothing like the people of Israel, the warmth, the unity that unfortunately has been damaged recently. That when someone posts about a kid who is being ostracized and no one comes to his bar mitzvah, or a couple who get married and no one is invited, or a lone soldier who fell in battle and does not have much family, and half the country drops everything to be there to celebrate or to console—also after disagreements, our people are like a community. All for one.
No matter how much the country can be in crisis, divided, at odds, ultimately, Israel’s people are the warmest and have the best people in the world. I always thought so; today I feel it personally, I know it. It goes beyond slogans and headlines. If being part of a people matters, then it is to be part of the people of Israel.
Every abductee and captive has a family, and everyone can have a future. I too want to do very bad things to Hamas, things that will make the Saw films look like Disney, but it will not bring back my family. The other abductees and captives, the living and the fallen, can and must still be brought back.
We need to remind ourselves why it is important to fight for our people, for ourselves, as only we know how. There will always be wars and people who want to fight us. The IDF and security forces will always know how to eliminate our enemies at the right moment. I believe in that. Now what matters is bringing home our people in captivity.