On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,195 people and taking 251 hostages. Among those hostages were Yarden Bibas, 34, his wife Shiri Bibas, 32, and their two ginger-haired children: Ariel Bibas, aged four, and Kfir Bibas, who was just nine months old when he was stolen from his home by savage terrorists. Never shall we forget that day, the first day of a nightmare seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

     In November of that year, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, where Hamas released 50 Israeli women and children. Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas were not returned during the ceasefire. Israel considered this to be a violation of the ceasefire. Hamas lied, stating that the family was killed in an Israeli airstrike. As far as Israelis knew, the Bibas family were still being held in tunnels somewhere, subjected to unimaginable conditions. Israelis took to the streets, demanding that the Bibas family be freed. 

     More than a year later, In January 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to yet another ceasefire. Hamas would release 33 hostages in weekly waves, and could release the remaining hostages in future phases of the deal pending further negotiations. Under the framework of the agreement, living women and children would be released first, followed by living men who were deemed ‘humanitarian cases.’ (Of course, every hostage constitutes a humanitarian crisis.)

     Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas were not released in the first round of releases. This triggered alarm throughout Israel. What happened to those innocent children?

     Yarden Bibas was released on February 1, 2025. He did not know of the whereabouts of his wife and children, and his family had no information to give him.
     On February 20, 2025, Israelis were faced with a day of sheer dread and anguish. Hamas paraded the coffins of Shiri Bibas, Kfir Bibas, and Ariel Bibas aboard a stage filled with  antisemitic imagery to a crowd of cheering Gazans. Some Gazans had even brought their children to come and celebrate the slaughter of our own. The terroristic procession, which I lack the strength to watch in full, was, and will remain, one of the most wretched abominations that ever took place upon this Earth. Once the Hamas-approved Two Hours Hate was over, the coffins were brought to Israel, where they were first scanned by an X-ray machine to verify that there were no explosives inside, and then treated to a brief ceremony before heading to a forensic institute for identification. The coffins were locked, and Hamas deliberately provided the wrong keys, requiring the coffins to be broken into. 

     Hamas returned the bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, as well as a woman who they said was Shiri Bibas. Israeli forensic analysis determined that the children were not killed by an airstrike, as Hamas lied, but by hand, by the terrorists sometime in November. Hamas murdered the Bibas children by hand. Hamas murdered an infant by hand. Furthermore, the body which Hamas said belonged to Shiri Bibas was in fact the body of a random Gazan woman. Evil upon evil upon evil. Shiri Bibas’s body was returned to Israel the next day, once Hamas had inflicted the desired psychological damage upon Israel.

     On February 26, Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel were laid to rest in the same casket.

     Never shall we forget their faces, whose bodies we saw returned in coffins beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall we forget the world’s silence.

     Never.