Poignant images of an anguished Shiri Bibas clutching her two red-headed boys as she was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 have turned her into the face of the Israeli hostages seized that day.
But friends and relatives of the 32-year-old say the unassuming woman they know and love would have been ill-at-ease at being thrust into the spotlight, in footage shot and aired by Hamas militants.
Five months later, Bibas’s fate and those of her baby boy and young son remain unclear.