As part of the ceasefire deal brokered by the Trump Administration last week, Israel and Hamas finally swapped hostages and detainees on Monday.
Hamas returned all 20 remaining living hostages to Israel, along with four of the 28 remaining deceased hostages—reportedly the bodies of Yossi Sharabi, Guy Illouz, Daniel Peretz, and Bipin Joshi. However, the militant group had agreed to return all 28 bodies it held captive. For its part, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, and roughly 1,700 Gazans who were arrested in the aftermath of the October 7 attack.
One of the 28 hostages who died in Hamas captivity was Israeli graffiti artist and art student Inbar Haiman, known as “Pink,” The Art Newspaper reported. She is the only woman still detained by Hamas. She was abducted at the age of 27 from the Nova Music Festival when Hamas fighters stormed it in on October 7, and her family are demanding the militant group returns her remains.
In September, Haiman’s aunt, Hannah Cohen, told the Times of Israel that “her mother needs a grave to go to, to speak to her daughter, to light a candle when she needs to. The mind plays tricks when there’s no closure; it sends a person to all kinds of places.”
Immediately after Hamas released some hostages on Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a civil, volunteer-based organization focused on the safe return of all Israeli citizens from Hamas captivity, released a statement. “[Not releasing the bodies of the remaining deceased hostages] is a brazen violation of the agreement by Hamas,” it read. “We expect the Israeli government and the mediators to act immediately to remedy this terrible injustice.”
On Tuesday, Israel reportedly gave Hamas until the end of the day to return the remaining bodies. Mediators believe that the group is having difficulty locating all of the remains, but according to the Kan public broadcaster, the Israeli government believes the group is holding some back. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that failing to hand over the bodies would violate the ceasefire agreement and “would have consequences.”
As TAN reported, Haiman was set to begin the final year of her visual communication degree at WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education. She wanted to pursue a career in design. Yaron Shin, one of Haiman’s instructors and the head of WIZO’s Visual Communication Department, told Portfolio magazine in October 2023 that “In situations where it was necessary to invent, imagine and describe completely amorphic things—her ability to create worlds ‘from her head’ is at its height.”
The visual communications student built a reputation as a graffiti artist; by the age of 15 she was “tagging” buildings with her monikers “Pink Question (eventually shortened to “Pink”) and “Pink Raven.” Graffiti started appearing around Israel, and in some cases further afield, after her abduction, including the message “Free Pink.”
