Israeli-Argentine baby Kfir Bibas, who was kidnapped by Hamas in Israel during the October 7 attack, turned one year old on Thursday. His relatives gathered in a Buenos Aires park to demand his safe return. 

Hamas claimed in November that Kfir, who was kidnapped along with his brother and his parents, was killed in an Israeli bombing — but Israeli authorities could not confirm his death.

“We can’t celebrate a birthday without the birthday boy,” read a sign on a cardboard cake the baby’s family set up Wednesday at Parque Centenario. They also called for the release of the rest of the Bibas family and all the remaining hostages.

“Kfir was 9 months old when he was kidnapped along with his brother Ariel, 4, his mom Shiri and his dad Yarden at their kibutz Nir Oz home, in south Israel,” the family said in a release on Wednesday. The baby “has spent one out of four days of his life in captivity,” they added.

The Bibas family was kidnapped on October 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, of whom 136 are still being held. Israel has since responded with a blockade and a widespread bombardment of the Gaza strip that has killed over 24,000 Palestinians and reduced large swathes of the territory to rubble. 

Hamas and Israel agreed to a week-long truce in November, during which Hamas freed 108 hostages and Israel released 240 Palestinians.

Kfir is the youngest known Hamas hostage. At the end of November, Hamas claimed he had been killed in an earlier Israeli bombing, along with his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother.

Hamas offered to hand over their bodies and release the father so he could bury them, saying Israel “was indifferent” to the proposal. They also published a video of the father blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu for the murder of his family.

“You bombed my family, you killed my wife and children, all I had in life. The least you can do is bring me and them back home to be buried in Israel,” says Yarden Bibas in the video, visibly shaken.

At the time, Israel said it would verify if Hamas’ claim was true. On December 1, the IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said they still didn’t have proof that the children and mother were dead and called the father’s video “psychological terror.”

Meanwhile, their family believe the couple and their children are still alive. “Kfir is still being held hostage, as well as his family. We don’t know if they are still together,” they said in their communiqué.

“Kfir should be taking his first steps and playing in his home with his family,” said Shiri’s cousin Sandra Miasnik during the gathering in Buenos Aires. “We are still hopeful because in other opportunities they said other hostages were dead, and then they were released alive.”