“I want to draw you Batman,” five-year-old Yoav said in a letter he addressed to his friend, slain hostage Ariel Bibas, his mother shared during a gathering of Kibbutz Nir Oz residents. Â
‘I want to draw you Batman and all the heroes who fly so that you’ll feel like flying over Gaza. And fight the bad guys with a bow and arrow. Then you’ll come back to us and be with us in kindergarten. I hope you buy yourself sweets and a cape. I miss you,” Yoav’s letter continued.
Yoav’s mother, Yamit Avital, shared, “Ariel Bibas is a friend of my youngest son, Yoav,” she said. “They grew up together.Â
“Every now and then, Yoav would ask me if I knew what was happening with Ariel and Kfir, and he shared how much he missed him and worried about him,” she said
Yoav’s mother stated her son asked that the letter be given to the kindergarten teacher, so that when Ariel returns to kindergarten, she could give it to him.
Avital also spoke of Ariel and Kfir’s mother, Shiri, “I want to believe that just as you wrapped and protected sweet Ariel and Kfir during the abduction, you also held them close and never let go until the very last moment.
“Your story was meant to end differently—we hoped so much for a happy ending. But now, with certainty about your fate, knowing that you are no longer suffering and that you are here, at home, with a resting place on the soil of Israel, we ask you to rest in peace—peace that you so deserve,” she said.
“We will remain with the longing. And from it, we will grow again,” Avital wrote.
“We will carry with us your sparkling ginger eyes, Ariel’s mischievousness, Shiri’s beautiful smile, and Kfir’s heart-melting laughter—engraved in us forever.”
In a conversation with Radio 103FM, Avital shared the emotional difficulty in explaining to her five-year-old son the death of his close friend.Â
“It was an incredibly difficult process, and it took time,” she said.
“When a child doesn’t see his friend, it raises so many questions—’Where is he?’ and ‘Why can’t I see him anymore?’ When the first deal began, we talked to the kids about how some children might return. I remember the look on my son’s face when he asked me, ‘Will Ariel come back?’ Each time, I had to tell him ‘No,’ because Ariel wasn’t on the lists.”
In addition to writing his friend a letter, Yoav “heard people on the radio sending messages to the hostages. He turned to me and said he wanted to send a message to Ariel too—maybe it would give him the strength to hold on,” she explained.
Yoav “started to understand that a deal needed to happen for Ariel to come back, but he still held onto hope. He sent a heartfelt message: ‘Fly away from there, dress up as Batman, and fly out of Gaza. Come to us in Karmei Gat. We’re waiting for you. Come back.’ This went on for a year and a half.”
“In the last month and a half, we had to prepare the kids for the new deal, explaining that this one was different—that some of the people coming back would no longer be alive. I used the words ‘no longer alive’ and ‘dead’ to make it clear,” she shared, adding that her children were familiar with the notion since their uncle, Gil Avital, had been killed on October 7 while defending Moshav Yachini.Â
However, she added that this time, Yoav “was grasping at every possibility to avoid accepting the reality of death.”
“Then he came up with an idea: ‘There are really smart people in Israel. Why don’t they invent a potion to bring Ariel and Kfir back to life? The potion could have special ingredients—like Batman’s knives, fire, speed, a cape, and something else to bring them back.”
“One night, I was reading him a bedtime story, and he stopped me, saying, ‘Mom, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stop thinking about Ariel. My heart hurts. It’s too much.’ He broke down crying. I tried to hold him, but nothing could comfort him. He feels lost and unprotected in a world where a baby and a child can be taken like this,” she added.
Murdered in captivityÂ
On October 7, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir, along with their father, Yarden Bibas, were abducted by terrorists from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Kfir was nine months old, and Ariel was four years old at the time.
Last week, the IDF confirmed the two brothers had been murdered by terrorists in Gaza captivity.
On Saturday, Shiri’s body was returned from Gaza after the body Hamas had initially transferred to Israel was not hers.Â
Their father, Yarden, was released from Hamas captivity on February 1 as part of the hostage-ceasefire deal.Â
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