IDF Eliminates Leaders of Terror Group Who Killed Bibas Family, Other Hostages

The IDF announced Sunday that two top figures in the Gaza-based Mujahideen Brigades, the small terror group responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Shiri Bibas Hy”d and her two young children, were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Saturday. One of those killed was the head of the group, Asaad Abu Sharia; the other was senior terrorist Mahmoud Kaheel.

The Mujahideen Brigades, a Hamas-aligned terror faction, confirmed the deaths of Abu Sharia and Kaheel following the IDF strikes. “The news represents another step for us in closing the circle and the process of accepting the great loss,” the Bibas family said in a statement. “Shiri, Ariel and Kfir will not return, but there is some comfort in knowing that the vile murderers will not harm another family.”

Shiri Bibas, her husband Yarden, and their sons, 4-year-old Ariel Hy”d and 9-month-old Kfir Hy”d, were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel. That day, terrorists murdered around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

During a ceasefire agreement in February, Hamas released Yarden Bibas on February 1. Shortly after, the group returned the bodies of Ariel and Kfir along with the bodies of hostage Oded Lifshitz Hy”d and a woman they falsely claimed was Shiri. After protests from Israel, Hamas later returned Shiri’s actual body.

Then-IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari revealed that Ariel and Kfir were “murdered in cold blood” in November 2023 and that their killers tried to cover up the crime with “atrocities.” Hagari refuted Hamas’s claim that the Bibas family was killed in an Israeli airstrike, and added that Yarden Bibas had asked the army to “ensure the world knows and is horrified by the way his children were murdered.”

According to the IDF, the Mujahideen Brigades were also responsible for the abduction and murder of hostages Gadi Haggai Hy’’d and Judih Weinstein Hy”d, as well as Thai agricultural worker Nattapong Pinta. Gadi and Judih were found on Wednesday, while Nattapong was returned on Saturday.

Haggai, 72, and Judih, 70 — both dual US-Israeli citizens — were murdered during their morning walk near Nir Oz on October 7. Their deaths were confirmed by the military in December 2023.

Pinta, 31, was abducted from Nir Oz where he had been working as a farmhand and later murdered in captivity. He was one of around 30 Thai nationals working in Israeli agriculture who were taken hostage in the October 7 attacks. He had come to Israel a year and a half before to support his wife and son in Thailand by working on an avocado and pomegranate farm.