The father of the youngest hostages taken on October 7 is being released to Israel tomorrow, Hamas said, without offering any update on his missing children and wife.
Yarden Bibas is the father of baby Kfir, only nine months old when he was kidnapped, and Ariel, who was four at the time of the attack.
There was no word on the fate of Kfir and Ariel, or on their mother Shiri, who was taken at the same time. Hamas said in late 2023 that they had been killed by Israeli bombardment.
He will be released along with two others including a dual US citizen in the next exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Keith Siegel and Ofer Kalderon will be handed over on Saturday, Hamas armed wing spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a post on his Telegram channel.
Israeli-American Keith Siegel, who was taken hostage with his wife Aviva, was seen in a video released by Hamas last year.
His wife was released in the first hostage-for-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
Ofer Kalderon’s two children Erez and Sahar, abducted alongside him, were also released in the first exchange.
Collect picture from the Bibas family of Baby Kfir Bibas, and mother Shiri, brother Ariel, and father Yarden, held hostage in Gaza

Yarden Bibas, an Israeli hostage who was kidnapped in the deadly October 7 2023 attack by Hamas

Ofer Kalderon, an Israeli hostage who was kidnapped in the deadly October 7 2023 attack by Hamas

Keith Siegel, who was taken hostage with his wife Aviva, and is now due to be freed on Saturday
Hamas previously claimed that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were killed in an Israeli bombing.
In a TV interview in June, then-Israeli minister Benny Gantz suggested that the government knew what had happened to the Bibas family, but that it could not provide details yet.
Israel has not officially confirmed the deaths of the two boys and their mother, but has expressed ‘grave concern’ for their fate.
There have been no proof-of-life videos shared of Shiri or her sons since their abduction on October 7, 2023.
Video of the mother and her two young boys being taken away by the terrorists was met with horror worldwide due to her visible distress.
Hamas said this week that only 25 of the 33 hostages it plans to release are still alive.
The 33 names on the list are women, the Bibas family children, men aged over 50, and unwell and injured men.

The image of the two young boys being carried by their weeping mother, Shiri, as they were marched from their homes was one of the most striking to be published in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war

Kfir Bibas, then just nine months old, was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists stormed the Nir Oz Kibbutz in southern Israel where Kfir lived with his older brother Ariel, their mother Shiri and father Yarden
Israel has accused Hamas of ‘psychological terror’ for naming the hostages but not actually confirming whether they are alive.
Whether hostages were alive or dead inside Gaza has been a heartbreaking question for waiting families who have pushed Israel’s government to reach a deal to free them, fearing that time was running out.
Around 90 hostages are still being held, and Israeli authorities believe between a third and a half of them were killed in the initial attack or died in captivity.