By Heather
For over 500 days we have been haunted by the images of Shiri Bibas and her precious children, Ariel and Kfir, taken from their home in NirOz, into Gaza.
We have prayed they would be treated with sympathy and for their soon return.
Yet we also heard the stories of what happened to other women and babies on the 7th October, 2023, and feared the worst. Also on that dreadful day – Shiri’s husband, Yarden was taken captive. He had left his family in the “safe room” and gone to help protect his community. He didn’t know the fate of his loved-ones until he was released after 484 days in dark, airless tunnels (Gaza does not have bomb shelters).
Shiri’s own parents were murdered in the October 7 massacre.
Now, in February 2025, we know that our worst fears became a reality about a month after their kidnapping. Ariel and Kfir were brutally murdered in captivity. Then their murderers spread rumours, which blamed the would-be rescuers for the children’s death!
In further evidence of their disregard for human life and sanctity of the dead – coffins were paraded as some sick “Spoils of War”.
One coffin was said to hold the remains of Ariel and Kfir’s mother Shiri – but no, she was not there. So Shiri is now separated from her children in death. (It is unlikely that Shiri is alive – though her family holds onto hope until they have official confirmation).
To add insult to injury, these heartless murderers sent the body of a different woman to Israel, in Shiri’s coffin. They didn’t even show a single morsel of respect to one of their own.
How does Yarden Bibas go on? How do the surviving grandparents, aunts and uncles, bury two babies, without their mother beside them? My tears are nothing compared to the grief the Bibas family is experiencing.
To the murderers of these innocent children I say this:
Luke 17:2 (NKJV)
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.