Hours after the heavily propagandized return of the bodies of four Israeli hostages, officials released findings that fully unmask the hate and callousness of Hamas and the Islamic terror groups who perpetrated the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
Three of the four bodies were said to belong to Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas, the wife and two sons of recently returned hostage Yarden Bibas. The Bibas family was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, with Yarden taken separately from his family.
The fourth victim was Oded Lifshitz, 83 at the time of his capture. Also a Kibbutz Nir Oz resident, Lifshitz was a peace advocate and supporter of Palestinians who was known for driving Gazan children to Israeli hospitals for care.
Lifshitz’s remains were positively identified, with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office stating that he had been “murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization” over a year ago.
Ariel and Kfir’s remains were also positively identified, with examiners at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute revealing that the boys were “brutally murdered” in November 2023 when Kfir was ten months old and his brother was four years old.
The body labeled as Shiri Bibas, however, did not belong to Shiri or to any known hostage.
Israeli officials protested the failure to return Shiri’s body as a violation of the hostage exchange agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would “pay … the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement.” A Hamas official called the incident “unfortunate” and said the group would investigate.
The possibility of an “unfortunate” error seems slim considering Thursday’s macabre and heartless exchange celebration. Loud, jubilant music played as the hostages’ four black coffins were displayed on a main stage. Each coffin noted a “date of arrest” of Oct. 7, 2023. Kfir’s and Ariel’s coffins were mislabeled.
The coffins stood against a large banner showing an altered photograph of Netanyahu with a blood-streaked face and sharp vampire fangs dripping blood onto an image of the four hostages prior to their capture and death. Beside the image, in Arabic, Hebrew, and English was the now-debunked message that “The War Criminal Netanyahu & His Nazi Army Killed Them with Missiles from Zionist Warplanes.”
Flanking the coffins were two missiles that read, “They were killed by USA bombs.”
Another large banner to the side of the stage contained a threat for Israel. Showing a host of coffins covered in Israeli flags, it included a caption reading, “The Return of War = The Return of Your Prisoners in Coffins.”
The masked men who carried the victims’ remains to waiting Red Cross officials represented the plethora of Islamic militant groups believed to be working together in operations against Israel. One man wears the distinctive yellow headband of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose members are sometimes connected to the Palestinian Authority or Fatah, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
X account Voice From The East identified other present groups as the al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing; Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s military wing; Al-Mujahideen Brigades; and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Videos from the event also show hordes of Palestinian children exuberantly cheering from the stage where the hostages’ coffins had been displayed and loudly hooting at the Hamas fighters who arrived at the site.
The event fully unveiled the hate that underlies Hamas’s agenda and percolates through the Gazan population, 97% of whom “harbor deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” according to a recent Anti-Defamation League survey of worldwide antisemitism.
The group’s staunchest supporters, who gathered worldwide to celebrate the glut of death on Oct. 7, will not be swayed by the brief moment of honesty. But for the onlookers who have unquestioningly swallowed endless anti-Israel propaganda churned out by Hamas, worldwide media, and international organizations, this is a time for self-reflection. The dehumanization of slaughtered innocents on display Thursday is the desired outcome of slogans such as “resistance by any means necessary” and “long live the intifada,” which have been chanted through our streets and on our campuses over the past 16 months.
The revelations about the Bibas children’s deaths and Shiri’s unknown status have been heavy for the Jewish community, which has fought an onslaught of hatred around the world since Oct. 7.
“For 500 days, we hoped that the joyous innocence of Ariel and Kfir would overcome the darkness of their captors, but only because we continue to naively underestimate the depths of Hamas’ depravity and hatred of anything human, as further demonstrated by their diabolical separation of the children from their mother,” stated Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, in a press release. “Peace will come with moral clarity, when the world recognizes and upholds the human side of this conflict and erases the utter wickedness of the unrepentant promoters and celebrants of evil.”
HAMAS HANDS OVER THE BODIES OF FOUR DEAD ISRAELI HOSTAGES
As news broke that Shiri’s body had not been returned, media reported that three Israeli buses had exploded almost simultaneously in Tel Aviv in what is suspected to be a terror attack. An undetonated bomb was found in a fourth bus.
Despite these horrifying developments, the fragile ceasefire and partial hostage exchange still hold. Six living hostages are set to be freed on Saturday, and an additional four bodies are slated for release next week. This will still leave about 60 hostages in Hamas captivity, half of whom are believed dead.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and the co-host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.