OPINION
Hamas parades the bodies of the Bibas family last week in a grotesque pantomime (Image: Anadolu via Getty)
Hamas stole the Bibas babies; nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel. A month later, it seems likely they choked them to death with their bare hands and then mutilated their bodies to make it appear like it had been a rocket attack.
There is no gentle way to write these words. No way to sugarcoat evil.
These serial killers then paraded their coffins on stage, with a printed backdrop blaming a vampiric Jew complete with blood and fangs. To maximise the pain, they didn’t tell the father Yarden that they had murdered his family while they held him captive for 484 days.
They did the same to Eil Sharabi who they starved until he was unrecognisable. They had murdered his wife and two daughters.
The Bibas family are now seared on the psyche of the Jewish people. We have seen their images so many times, hoping against hope they were safe, so we feel we know them. Their images have become emblematic of how the lives of a beautiful, innocent young family were deliberately extinguished in the most sadistic way imaginable.
We know Hamas and their sympathisers don’t see Jews as human beings. That was clearly the case during the October 7 massacre as they whooped with joy while filming themselves killing and mutilating families, raping young people and live-streaming murder on social media.
Shiri Bibas, 33, who was kidnapped and murdered along with her children (Image: AP)
Unfortunately, Jews know only too well how people behave when they have lost all their humanity – we barely had one generation’s holiday from it. They enjoy causing the most horrific suffering and they get validation from their Western sympathisers, who are publicly thanked by Hamas leaders.
There was a worldwide effort to erase the Bibas family from memory by tearing down “missing” posters with their pictures on, with police in the UK, Germany and Amnesty workers in Italy joining in. Swastikas were drawn on these babies’ faces and they were labelled “Nazis” and “colonisers” because it was the worst thing people could imagine to demonise them as the epitome of evil.
Even as the October 7 massacre was occurring and the Bibas family were being kidnapped, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) were busy applying for a “solidarity” march in London, which took place two days later, and was celebratory in tone.
The engine of hate was revving up.
After murdering them, Hamas felt emboldened to keep the Bibas’s bodies for barter so that more of their murderers could be released, as the architect of the October 7 massacre Yahya Sinwar had been.
Amnesty International said in a dewy-eyed social media statement that the return of their bodies was a “heartbreaking reminder of the urgent need to immediately release all civilian hostages and Palestinians arbitrarily detained”.
Meanwhile, a senior lecturer in Political Economy at Birkbeck Business School posted a video of Hamas parading the bodies of the Bibas family, claiming they had been “treated with respect”.
A deadly ideology has become mainstream because individuals, organisations and institutions have all helped to normalise it as a righteous cause. UNRWA reportedly provided material support for Hamas and many employees participated in the massacre.
Today it is a sad indictment of how far the Overton window has shifted that many Jews are celebrating a prime-time documentary shown to include blatant Hamas propaganda being removed from iPlayer.
Kfir and Ariel Bibas didn’t get to grow up. They were murdered because they were Jewish. It wasn’t because of where they lived, but because they were living.
What is the meaning of the Bibas family? They don’t just symbolise the brutality of Hamas. They also symbolise the apathy at best and complicity at worst of western liberal culture.
We are no longer surprised by the barbaric violence of Hamas. What has shocked and hurt us the most is the abandonment by those we thought were our political or ideological allies who have remained silent. Those people who regularly raise their voices against global injustice and inequality.
Jews have once again been “othered” and banished from “the community of the good”. The cries of our babies were ignored and we will never forgive or forget.
- Alex Hearn is director of Labour Against Antisemitism