There are moments when words fail; when they simply cannot capture the anguish, sorrow, and burning outrage of witnessing human cruelty at its worst.
Last week, the remains of four victims of Hamas' atrocities were returned to their people and family. One of them was Oded Lifshitz. He was taken hostage at the Nir Oz kibbutz. In life, he was a committed peace activist who spent his time ensuring Palestinians could access medical care.
In death his body was desecrated by cheers and loud celebratory music.
To this monstrous display were added three more coffins, those of Ariel and Kfir Bibas and what we were told were the remains of their mother, Shiri Bibas. Like the remains of Oded, they were not treated with dignity. They were instead paraded through Gaza in a spectacle of savage celebration. As joyous music blared and the crowd cheered, we saw just how far hatred can drag people into the depths of cruelty and moral oblivion.
It was so grotesque that even those who usually prefer to ignore or "both sides" Hamas’ atrocities struggled to justify what they saw.
Sensing an opportunity to place responsibility for the slaughter of the children at the feet of Israel, the stage was adorned with an enormous backdrop that—drawing upon ages-old antisemitic imagery—depicted Netanyahu as a demon, fangs dripping with blood on the bodies of our dead. (One might wonder how, in the midst of an alleged "genocide," Hamas still manages to produce high-quality propaganda banners.)
The terrorists claimed that the children had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Why they thought that this made any difference, given that both their captivity and all of those air strikes were the product of their own malevolent design, is beyond me. It was, as one commentator said, like claiming that Anne Frank sadly died of typhus (the disease that took her life in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp).
Opening their coffins was in itself another example of the terrorists' sadistic intent. They were heavy and locked, raising suspicions that required a bomb disposal team to allay before they could be unsealed. Once opened, Israeli coroners discovered that their mother was not among the dead. They also determined that the children were actually strangled to death, their small bodies then pummeled with rocks to simulate death by an airstrike. Even in his indescribable sorrow, their father Yarden—who was released a few weeks earlier—insisted that this be revealed to the world.
How do we make sense of this? How do we begin to comprehend the brutal and intentional murder of children, the public desecration of the dead, the joy in suffering?
It is not just an atrocity; it is a statement—a declaration from Hamas and its supporters that they revel in destruction. It is a chilling reminder that this is not about land, policies, or negotiations. It is about a worldview that glorifies death and seeks to erase an entire people.
Later in the day someone posted the video of a joyous moment in the life of the Bibas family. It was taken at the moment when little Ariel met his baby brother Kfir for the very first time. Even if you didn't see it, you know what it captured. Among our own happy videos, many of us have one or more from the day when our children or grandchildren met their newborn siblings. For the Bibas family there will never be another joyous moment captured on video. Just nine months later, Ariel, Kfir and their loving parents—who tried desperately to shield them—were dragged into captivity by the terrorists.
The Bibas' stories are not isolated. They were among the 1,163 killed (many after being raped and savaged and mutilated) and the 251 hostages taken on October 7, 2023, that day of true infamy. When you hear chants calling to "globalize the intifada" and for "resistance by any means necessary" and of "from the river to the sea" and that "we don't want no two states, we want 1948," please know that they are a call for more October 7 massacres, again and again and again. Hamas and its many allies have said this explicitly.
Our responsibility as Jews and as human beings is to hold the victims of these atrocities in our hearts—not solely as symbols of tragedy, but as reminders of the humanity that the terrorist collective and their legions of supporters seek to erase.
There will be those who tell us to move on, to speak of peace as if it were a magic spell that could erase the brutal reality we now face. But peace cannot be made with those who celebrate death and destruction, who have made it painfully clear that they do not seek a future of coexistence, but a future without us. Their goal is not peace—it is the elimination of the Jewish people. No nation, no people on earth could be expected to accept such a fate.
So, today, we remember. We grieve. And we commit ourselves to the simple but profound act of witnessing the truth—because if we do not, who will?
May the memories of all who have been murdered in the relentless effort to erase the Jewish people—on October 7, and for generations before—be a blessing.
עם ישראל חי.
Am Yisrael Chai—The people of Israel lives.
We endure.
We will not be erased.