The leader of a small Gaza terror group responsible for the October 7, 2023, abductions and eventual murders of several hostages, including Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Saturday, the military said. Another senior member was killed in a separate strike in the city.
Asaad Abu Sharia was head of the Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small Hamas-allied terror group in the enclave, while Mahmoud Kaheel was one of its leading operatives. The Brigades confirmed the two had been killed.
“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 following the news, adding, “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, Yarden Bibas, and their two redheaded sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, a baby who was just nine months old at the time of the attack, were kidnapped from their Kibbutz Nir Oz home on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
In February, during Israel’s temporary ceasefire deal with Hamas, Yarden Bibas was released on February 1. The terror group then released the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas alongside the body of hostage Oded Lifshitz, and an unidentified Gaza woman whom they claimed was Shiri Bibas. After Israel protested, Hamas returned Shiri’s body.
Then-IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said the boys’ captors had murdered them in November 2023 “in cold blood” and “with bare hands” and committed atrocities to hide the evidence — contrary to Hamas’s claim that the boys and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hagari added that Yarden Bibas had asked him to ensure the world “knows and is horrified by the way his children were murdered.”
The Israel Defense Forces said that in addition to the Bibas family, the Brigades also kidnapped and murdered Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein, as well as Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta. The military recovered the bodies of Haggai and Weinstein from Gaza on Wednesday night, while Pinta’s body was returned on Saturday.
Haggai and Weinstein, 72 and 70, were a married couple who held US citizenship. They were murdered during their morning walk near Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, and their deaths were confirmed by the military in December of that year.
Pinta, 31, was kidnapped alive from Nir Oz, where he worked as a farmhand, and murdered in captivity. He was one of some 30 Thai nationals working in agriculture in Israel who were kidnapped on October 7.
He moved to Israel a year and a half before the onslaught to work on the avocado and pomegranate farm and support his wife and young son in Thailand.
Palestinian media reported over 30 dead in the strike in the Sabra neighborhood that killed Abu Sharia. The strike that killed Kaheel also killed his wife, children, and other family members, the terror group said.
According to the IDF, Abu Sharia invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught and was “directly involved” in abductions and murders of civilians, including members of the Bibas family.
The IDF said Abu Sharia was also behind various attacks in the Strip and directed attacks on Israel from the West Bank.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are now holding 56 hostages, including 55 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.
They include the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF. Another 20 are believed to be alive, while there are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.