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People celebrate the birthday of toddler Kfir Bibas in Tel Aviv
Photo: Abir Sultan / EPA
More than three months after the start of the war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, the youngest of the abducted hostages has turned one year old.
Kfir Bibas was eight months old when Palestinian gunmen led by Hamas stormed Kibbutz Nir Os in southern Israel on October 7.
He was the youngest of about 240 men, women and children taken hostage to the Gaza Strip.
During its attack on October 7, Hamas kidnapped the siblings Kfir and Ariel Bibas and their parents Shiri and Jarden from Kibbutz Nir Os.
The images of her abduction have become one of the symbols of Hamas' major attack on Israel.
In Kibbutz Nir Os, one in four of the 400 residents were either killed or kidnapped.
According to Hamas statements in late November, Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri were killed in the ensuing Israeli offensive, while their father Yarden survived.
However, in the absence of Israeli confirmation, relatives and friends back home refuse to give up hope for a safe recovery for the entire family.
If Kfir is still alive, he would have turned one on Thursday and would have spent a third of his life as a hostage.
Supporters celebrate his first birthday in Tel Aviv.
“We think about them every day, every second, every minute,” said Jossi Schneider about his family who were deported to the Gaza Strip.
»We're celebrating the birthday of a child who isn't here.
We baked him a cake, balloons, pictures, blessings and everything, and he is not there," Shiri's cousin told Reuters.
"It's crazy."
"We pray that all the medicine reaches the hostages, but this is just the beginning," said Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the World Economic Forum in Davos, sitting next to a picture of one-year-old Kfir Bibas.
At the same time, humanitarian aid for the Palestinian civilian population was also brought to the Palestinian territory, as the Qatari Foreign Ministry announced.
kim/AFP/Reuters