FLASH NEWS
Freed Israeli hostage calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
2025-03-31 17:13:52 / BOTA
Former Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and children were killed while being held by Gaza militants, has urged US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to end the war to rescue the remaining captives.
In his first interview since being released from the Gaza Strip in February under a failed ceasefire deal, Bibas said Israel's resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still being held in the Palestinian territory.
"Please stop this war and help return all the hostages," Bibas said, addressing Trump in an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" aired late Sunday.
"I know he can help," Bibas said.
"I'm here because of Trump, I'm here only because of him, I think he's the only one who can stop this war again."
Palestinian militants kidnapped Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri, and their two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.
The family -- and especially four-year-old Ariel and Kfir, who was only eight months old when he was captured -- became a symbol of the hostage tragedy in Israel.
Israeli authorities have accused Hamas of killing Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Biba "in cold blood".
Hamas said in November 2023 that the three were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit the place where they were being held. Their bodies were returned in February, after the father's release.
Yarden Bibas, asked if he thought the renewed fighting in Gaza might encourage Hamas to release the hostages, replied: "No."
Israel resumed intensive bombing on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued was proving effective in swaying Hamas negotiators.
Bibas told CBS News that while he was held in Gaza, the Israeli bombing was "scary, you don't know when it's going to happen, and when it does, you fear for your life."
Of the 251 hostages taken during the 2023 attack, 58 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.
The ceasefire since January saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including several dead, in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody.
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