Even among the violence of October 7, the kidnapping of infant Kfir Bibas, four-year-old Ariel Bibas, and their mother Shiri Bibas was an act of particular depravity. As campaign groups in Britain were making preparations for shows of support for Palestine, the Bibas family were carried into Gaza.
Today, their bodies appear to have been returned to Israel after one final indignity. Four coffins were paraded on a stage in Khan Yunis before a baying crowd, marked with propaganda slogans declaring the “date of arrest” of their occupants, beneath a poster depicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a blood-drenched vampire. The coffins appear to have been locked with no keys provided. Military engineers were reportedly checking for traps prior to formal identification.
It is a reminder, if any were needed, that there can be no coexistence or peace with Hamas, and that the terrorist organisation must be rooted out and destroyed, along with those who offer it shelter and succour. For those of us in Britain, it is a reminder, too, of the moral perversion of the regular marches against Israel taking place in our cities, and of the gap in values between the decent, law-abiding public and those taking part. Just this weekend, London’s streets were again marred as anti-Semitic insults and the chant of “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return”, were hurled at counter-protesters.
It is a source of national shame that the response of so many in Britain has been to support the perpetrators of the October 7 pogrom rather than the victims, a shame compounded by the weakness of the police in confronting those spreading hate on our streets.
Even among the violence of October 7, the kidnapping of infant Kfir Bibas, four-year-old Ariel Bibas, and their mother Shiri Bibas was an act of particular depravity. As campaign groups in Britain were making preparations for shows of support for Palestine, the Bibas family were carried into Gaza.
Today, their bodies appear to have been returned to Israel after one final indignity. Four coffins were paraded on a stage in Khan Yunis before a baying crowd, marked with propaganda slogans declaring the “date of arrest” of their occupants, beneath a poster depicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a blood-drenched vampire. The coffins appear to have been locked with no keys provided. Military engineers were reportedly checking for traps prior to formal identification.
It is a reminder, if any were needed, that there can be no coexistence or peace with Hamas, and that the terrorist organisation must be rooted out and destroyed, along with those who offer it shelter and succour. For those of us in Britain, it is a reminder, too, of the moral perversion of the regular marches against Israel taking place in our cities, and of the gap in values between the decent, law-abiding public and those taking part. Just this weekend, London’s streets were again marred as anti-Semitic insults and the chant of “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return”, were hurled at counter-protesters.
It is a source of national shame that the response of so many in Britain has been to support the perpetrators of the October 7 pogrom rather than the victims, a shame compounded by the weakness of the police in confronting those spreading hate on our streets.