Dear Colleagues – 506

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I had decided not to write again until all the female hostages were released from Gaza. It is day 506 and there are still three female bodies not yet returned. But I had to break my silence.

Shiri Bibas’s remains were at last returned home to Israel for burial on Friday night 21^st February 2025. This, after her body was supposedly in a coffin handed by Hamas to the Israeli government on Thursday 20th, except those forensics revealed that it was not her body after all.  And this, after the bodies of her children, Ariel and Kfir, who were taken hostage at the ages of four and nine months respectively, were returned in a grotesque ceremony with Hamas parading their coffins amidst a cheering crowd of men, women and children in Gaza.

Ariel was as cute as they come. A 4-year old little boy with bright ginger hair and obsessed with batman. In photos taken before he was 3, his locks had grown to his shoulders in waves of ginger as is the custom to not cut Jewish boys’ hair until they turn 3. His brother, Kfir, was a cutie. Photos show plump cheeks, pale skin, a smiling, gurgling face and hints of his brother’s ginger hair. One of the videos circulating on social media was of the day that Ariel met his younger brother for the first time. In that meeting, with Shiri watching over them, and likely their father, Yarden, taking the video, Ariel appears proud of his emerging role as Kfir’s older brother and protector.

We now know that Ariel and Kfir were killed in November 2023. Hamas has been saying that they were killed by Israeli air strikes. Something did not ring true. The Israeli forensics, released to the international public, now tell the story. Palestinian terrorists strangled 4-year-old Ariel and 10-month-old Kfir. They then threw rocks at their bodies to simulate the impact of air strikes. It has taken our collective breath away.

Shiri was also brutally murdered while in captivity. Out of respect to her husband and family’s wishes, the details of her murder are not being revealed. Oded Lifshitz’s 83-year-old body was the fourth one returned on Thursday. If you look him up, you will read about a left leaning journalist who drove Palestinians to Israeli hospitals every week. He was of course much more than that, but you get the gist. The week culminated in the release of six more male hostages on Saturday, two of whom were held by Hamas for over 9 years: Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Avera Mengisto, Hisham al-Sayed and Omer Wenkert. It has been an emotional roller coaster.

Thank you to each one of you who has asked how I am since October 7th. Each time you ask, it helps. This week I have not been okay; and my community has not been okay. It is not merely the sheer brutality that shocked us but the continuing lack of condemnation from those institutions who were established to protect a four-year old and nine-month old from such cruelty.

Some of you have asked me, ‘What can I do to help?’ I finally have an answer.

As you hear snippets of your children, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, colleagues and friends engaging in discussions of false equivalency, take a moment to explain to them that whatever they think Israel may need to do differently, October 7^th took place because Hamas and Islamic Jihad are committed to the annihilation of the Israeli state and every Jew in the world. They have said so themselves. That is what, ‘From the river to the sea” means. That is not to say that they cannot or should not feel the pain of others, but it does mean that it is time to move beyond carrying harmful banners and repeating truly genocidal phrases as if they have no impact. They are a direct line to Shiri’s and the Bibas children’s fate, not to mention their father Yarden who spent almost 500 days in captivity.

This Monday, 24th February 2025, when you walk into the office or dial into a zoom, there is not much point in asking your Jewish colleagues how they are. They are not okay. But there is a very much a point in reaching out, saying that you feel their pain and showing them that you are standing beside them.

Carmel