In November 2023, without providing evidence, Hamas claimed that the children—then 4 years old and 10 months old—along with their mother, had died in an Israeli airstrike.

Israel Defence Force (IDF) claimed that the forensic reports of Ariel and Kfir Bibas suggested that Hamas killed both children with bare hands. The Palestinian group initially said that the two children and their mother,

Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Ariel and Kfir Bibas with their bare hands, Israel said — despite the terror group long claiming the children were killed in a targeted airstrike carried