Former hostage Elkana Bohbot, wife welcome baby daughter less than a year after his release

Former hostage Elkana Bohbot and his wife Rivka welcomed a baby daughter on Friday, just 10 and a half months after he returned to Israel following 738 days in Hamas captivity. The Iconic countdown clock at Hostage Square is shut down after the last hostage is returned home Bohbot announced the birth on Instagram, posting a photograph of himself, Rivka and their newborn daughter from the hospital alongside Psalm 100, traditionally known as a psalm of thanksgiving. The baby is the couple’s second child and a younger sister to their son Re’em. The couple revealed in April that they were expecting another child, several months after Bohbot’s return. “Our story is not yet over; it continues to grow,” Rivka wrote at the time. Bohbot was abducted from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre and held in Gaza for more than two years. He was released on October 13, 2025, as part of a hostage deal, and reunited with Rivka and Re’em, who was three years old when his father was kidnapped and five when he returned. Released hostages recall moment they learned loved ones were alive During his captivity, Bohbot’s captors sought to convince him that his family was gone, at one point telling him that his mother had died and that his wife had left him. The birth drew congratulations from Israeli public figures, with Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman calling it “the real victory” and saying the country was celebrating with the family.