Released hostage Yarden Bibas was informed about his wife’s and children’s death by Hamas while he was on camera. The terrorist organization filmed him as it delivered the news to him, then told him that Shiri’s, Ariel’s, and Kfir’s deaths were of no consequence.
“They were murdered in cold blood – [by] bare hands,” he told CBS News 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl in an interview released on Sunday. “They [Hamas] used to tell me: ‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll get a new wife, new kids – better wife, better kids,” he said, adding that his captors repeated that statement many times.
The expansive interview on 60 Minutes featured Bibas along with freed hostages Keith and Aviva Seigel, Tal Shoham, and the parents of hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal.
ירדן ביבס בפרומו לראיון שהעניק לתוכנית "60 דקות": "אני פה רק בגלל טראמפ, אני יודע שהוא יכול לעזור"@itamargalit (מתוך "60 דקות", באדיבות סלקום TV) pic.twitter.com/0DaGRSvsX1
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 30, 2025
As far as Bibas was concerned, his first interview with the media since his release was an opportunity to gain US President Donald Trump’s attention. He believes Trump can end the Israel-Hamas War and bring the hostages home.
Bibas told Stahl that he was released because of the US administration’s efforts.
“I know he can help. I’m here because of Trump. I’m here because of him,” Bibas said. “I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again. He has to convince [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, to convince Hamas; I think he can do it.”
When asked if he had anything specific he wanted to tell the US president, Bibas pleaded for the remaining hostages’ release.
“Please stop the war and help bring all the hostages back,” Bibas said. He mentioned earlier that he believed that Netanyahu’s decision to resume the war in Gaza would not bring the remaining hostages home.
In the interview, Bibas wore a shirt with pictures of hostage brothers David and Ariel Cunio, his longtime friends and neighbors from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
“This is David. I’ve known him since first grade, and this is his younger brother, Ariel,” Bibas said, pointing to his shirt.A hostage released in the first phase of the deal confirmed to the Cunio family that David was still alive and in Gaza, Ynet reported in February.
“We did everything together. He was with me in every big thing in my life,” Bibas said. “He was at my wedding. Now, probably the hardest thing that I have to [do is] move [on] with my life – and David is not with me.”
He emphasized that he was worried for the Cunio brothers’ safety and that he was desperate to get them home to their families.
“I lost my wife and kids. Sharon [Cunio] must not lose her husband.”
Bibas told 60 Minutes that he was mostly held underground in the tunnels and that IDF airstrikes terrified him.
“It’s scary. You don’t know when it’s gonna happen, and when it happens, you are afraid for your life. The whole earth would move, like an earthquake, but underground. So everything could collapse at any moment.”
THE SIEGELS recounted their capture on October 7 to 60 Minutes as they walked around their destroyed house in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
“I stood here, and they pushed me out of the window while I had to go all the way there,” Aviva said, standing at the window of the house. “I was in shock.”
“We were driven into Gaza and then taken into a tunnel, feeling in danger, feeling life-threatened [with] terrorists around us with weapons,” Keith said. “We were gasping for breath.”
He also detailed the abuse he witnessed during his time in captivity.
“I witnessed a young woman being tortured by the terrorists. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense,” he said, adding that Hamas terrorists made him watch the events.
“I saw [the] sexual assault [of] female hostages.”
Seigel said that his conditions in captivity worsened after his wife was released in the first temporary ceasefire in 2023.
“The terrorists became very mean and very cruel and very violent, much more so [than before the 2023 ceasefire]. They were beating me and starving me,” he said.
“Do you think they starved you, or they just didn’t have food?” Stahl asked.
“No, I think they starved me, as they would often eat in front of me and not offer me food.”
He also corroborated what many released hostages have said about hygiene conditions in Gaza, saying that he was only allowed to take a bucket bath once a month.
He then confirmed CBS’s question about how Hamas had shaved male captives’ heads and genital regions.
“I think... it amused them, or, you know, humiliated [us]. I felt humiliated.”
Siegel told Stahl that he felt “completely dependent” on his captors and that he believed that they used that to torture him psychologically.
“I was left alone several times, and I was very, very scared that maybe they won’t come back, and I’ll be left there. What would I do then?” he said. “So maybe that was a way for them to torture me in that way. I’m pretty sure they knew I wouldn’t dare to do that [escape] because I needed them.”
Shoham spoke of his time in captivity with Evyatar David and Gilboa-Dalal to their respective parents.He told them that it took Gilboa-Dalal days to accept his new reality.
“One moment, he’s like, partying in the Nova, and in the next, he’s in the worst place in the world. It took him five or six days just to stop crying,” Shoham said.
He also detailed how the three of them were beaten every day, held in cramped tunnels, and given tiny amounts of food to split.
Shoham explained that they were able to elicit favors from their guards and told a story about giving a guard massages to get better food.
“The exchange was that he would get a massage every day, and he would bring us more food, and different food – a can of tuna, sardines.”
He added that both young men struggled with their mental health while in captivity and expressed suicidal thoughts to him.
“One of the toughest things I heard from them [David and Gilboa-Dalal] was them telling me more than once: ‘Why stay alive now?’” Shoham said.
“I mean, why not just take their own life with their own hands and finish it and get released from it,” he continued.“They are not children, but from time to time, I felt like a father to them. I really fear that they are now alone,” Shoham added.
The families expressed their concerns over the state of the two hostages’ mental health. David’s mother noted that the two men would likely create a pact of sorts if needed.
“They would do it together if they decide to do it,” she said.
Gilboa-Dalal and David’s parents said that they wanted everyone to hear stories from captivity in the hopes that someone would save their sons.
“Maybe someone would hear it, and it will save our sons,” David’s mother said.
The full interview aired at 7 p.m. EST (2 a.m. UTC) on CBS.