First Terrorists, Then Journalists, Cover Up Brutal Murders of Bibas Children

By: Tamar Sternthal October 16, 2025

Nearly two years ago, Palestinian terrorists committed gruesome atrocities to cover up the fact that they murdered the Bibas children with their bare hands, forensic evidence revealed. This week, deploying a journalistic sleight of hand, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal likewise cover up the barbaric murders of toddler Ariel and baby Kfir.

Times of Israel reported in February 2025:

“We can confirm that baby Kfir Bibas, just 10 months old, and his older brother Ariel, aged four, were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza no later than November 2023. These two innocent children were taken hostage alive, along with their mother, Shiri, from their home on October 7, 2023,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says in a televised statement.

“Contrary to Hamas’s lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike. Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered in cold blood by terrorists,” he says. “The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities. This assessment is based on both forensic findings, from the identification process, and intelligence that supports these findings. We have shared these findings, intelligence, and forensics with our partners around the world so they can verify it.”

Hagari adds that when he spoke yesterday with the children’s father, recently released hostage Yarden Bibas, “Yarden looked me in the eyes and asked that all the world know and be horrified by the manner in which they murdered his children.” [Emphases added.]

An otherwise informative Oct. 11 Wall Street Journal article about the Israeli and foreign hostages held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip whitewashes the brutal circumstances of the family’s killings (“Soldiers, Brothers, Music Lovers: The Israeli Hostage Expected Home From Gaza“): “[Yarden Bibas’] wife, Shiri, and their two young children died in captivity and were returned to Israel in February.” [Emphasis added.]

Similarly, a misleading caption appearing alongside an Oct. 11 New York Times article reads: “Hamas militants taking Yarden Bibas to Gaza after kidnapping him from his home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz in Israel near the Gaza border, on Oct. 7, 2023. Mr. Bibas was released in early 2025; his wife and two children died in captivity.” (Emphasis added.)

The references to the family “dying” in captivity are incomplete, to the point of obscuring findings by Israel’s forensic investigators on the cause of death. As the New York Times reported last August, the Bibas family were “killed in captivity.” Notwithstanding claims to the contrary by Hamas, the group responsible for targeting and murdering civilians in its Oct 7 attack, the wife and small children were found to have been brutally murdered.
Despite the forensic evidence, both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal refused to clarify, defending the euphemistic language serving Hamas’ false narrative that the mother and children died in an Israeli airstrike.
With research and writing by Gilead Ini.

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