By American Israeli Keith Siegel is among the hostages set to be released Saturday, Hamas said statement Friday, as part of the fourth hostage-prisoner exchange with Israel.
Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon will also be released, according to Hamas’ statement.
Keith Siegel.Courtesy Siegel family
Siegel, 65, was last seen in a video released by Hamas in April, where he spoke directly to his family to say he was doing OK. Originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Siegel was taken from kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which some 250 people were kidnapped and about 1,200 killed.
Bibas was abducted along with his wife, Shiri, and their two sons, Kfir, who was 9 months old at the time and would have turned 2 this month, and Ariel, now 5.
During a one-week ceasefire in November 2023 when 105 hostages were released, the Bibas children did not emerge out of Gaza, unlike other child hostages. It’s unknown if the Bibas children and their mother are still alive.
Yarden, Ariel, Shiri and Kfir Bibas.Bibas family
Hamas said during that ceasefire that Shiri Bibas and the two children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but the Israeli military said the claims could not be confirmed. In February 2024, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged its fears for the family.
“Based on the information available to us, we are very concerned and worried about the condition and well-being of Shiri and the children,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief spokesperson, said in a news conference.
Ofer Kalderon, now 54, was kidnapped with 17-year-old daughter Sahar and 12-year-old son Erez.
Both children were released in November 2023.
“To get him back has been the one thing that has been the missing piece of their puzzle of recovery,” Kalderon’s cousin, Jason Greenberg, told NBC Boston.
Ofer Kalderon. via Hostages and Missing Families Forum
Soon after Siegel’s video, his two daughters, Ilan and Shir, shared a picture of them holding hands with their mother, Aviva Siegel, who was also taken hostage on Oct. 7 but released a month later.“Keith and I nearly died in the tunnel because there was no oxygen, and I’ve been talking about it over and over and over — hard stories. But I want to just tell everybody we’re not going to stop,” she told NBC News’ Lester Holt in an interview alongside others whose loved ones were also taken.
Apart from Siegel, two more Americans are believed to be still alive in Gaza: Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, and Edan Alexander, 20.
The bodies of four Americans — Itay Chen, 19; Omer Neutra, 21; and the married couple Judith Weinstein, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 73 — who were most likely killed on Oct. 7, 2023, are still being held in Gaza.
Israel is expected to release another group of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the three hostages Saturday.
