Friday, February 21, 2025

02/21 Links Pt1: Sixteen Months of Lies About Everything; Israel confirms Red Cross received remains Hamas claims is Shiri Bibas

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Sixteen Months of Lies About Everything
The revelation that Hamas lied about how and when and by whose hand the Bibas children were killed has some crucial implications for any remotely intellectually honest person.

To put a fine point on it: Hamas lies about everything, and therefore Hamas has lied about everything. Hamas propaganda has shaped the world’s understanding of this conflict, and every syllable of it has been false.

One is tempted to interject here that an intellectually honest person would have already come to this conclusion and therefore perhaps there are precious few minds left to be changed. But integrity compels us to say what is true anyway.

Hamas’s lies about the Bibas family were shocking even by Hamas standards. Shiri and her two sons Ariel and Kfir were taken from their homes on Oct. 7, 2023 when Ariel was 4 and Kfir was less than a year old. Throughout the war, Hamas claimed they were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Yarden, Shiri’s husband and the kids’ father, was also taken hostage but held separately from his family. Hamas taunted him repeatedly, once even on camera for a propaganda video, about his family’s fate. Yarden was released this month.

Yesterday, Hamas returned the bodies of Ariel and Kfir and a third hostage, Oded Lifshitz, as well as a body they claimed was Shiri but turned out to have been a random unidentified Palestinian woman.

That wasn’t the only surprise revealed during Israel’s forensic examination of the bodies. The boys were not killed in an Israeli airstrike; they were murdered by their Palestinian captors, who strangled the children with their bare hands and then mutilated their bodies in order to try and obfuscate their cause of death.

The claim that the Bibases were killed in an IDF airstrike was believable enough—and therefore was widely believed. Even if that had been true, it wouldn’t have mitigated Hamas’s responsibility one iota. But since much of the world, from media to governments to activist organizations, was looking for any excuse to absolve Hamas and the Palestinians and to cast Israel’s counteroffensive as overly aggressive and counterproductive to boot, its underlying assumptions were accepted and repeated and shaped debate over the war even within Israel itself. And since Israel and the U.S. are democracies, public debate shapes war policy and outcomes as well.

In this way, Hamas has stage managed the war to an unprecedented degree.

It’s not as though we hadn’t caught Hamas in lies throughout the war, of course. After all, there are two kinds of Hamas statements: lies that have been exposed and lies that have yet to be exposed.
Jonathan Tobin: The unavoidable necessity to draw conclusions about Palestinian Arab society
But recent events should reinforce the willingness of the administration of President Donald Trump to envision a future for Gaza in which the Palestinians—like the Germans of 80 years ago—are forced to pay a price for their crimes. As historian Andrew Roberts wrote recently in The Free Press, rather than damning Trump’s plan as “ethnic cleansing,” there are clear precedents for this sort of accountability that have been accepted by an international consensus.

More than that, the latest Palestinian celebration of terror and hate should force those members of the civilized world to stop giving them a pass for their behavior.

There may well be many Palestinian individuals who are appalled by what their society is doing. That’s true—not only in terms of the unwillingness to give up “resistance” that amounts to a justification of genocide of the Jews but also what it’s done to their own people. But they have failed to make themselves known or to push back against the culture of terror.

It’s also true that resisting Hamas and the other terror organizations, including the supposedly “moderate” Fatah that controls the Palestinian Authority, would be difficult and extremely dangerous. But in the past, the world has shown no reluctance to judge nations and peoples by their willingness to do just that.

Even in Nazi Germany, where a totalitarian government controlled every aspect of society and fear of the Hitlerian regime was justified, some resisted. And, of course, there were instances of “righteous gentiles” who sought to save Jews from death, even though they were rare in Germany and most proved unsuccessful.

Despite the nearby presence of Israeli forces and even financial rewards offered for anyone who would help one of the hostages escape, there appears not to have been one taker among the Palestinians in Gaza. It would have been a perilous thing to accept that offer. But we have learned that many of the hostages were held by civilians in their own homes, not only in Hamas’s tunnels. They were forced to cook, clean and watch after kids. Yet not a single Palestinian Arab seems to have been willing to save one of the hostages, even those harbored in their homes. There is also the fact that some of the worst of the Oct. 7 outrages were conducted by civilians and not the Hamas assault forces.

When it comes to the Palestinians, all of the well-meaning rhetoric about common humanity was defeated by a collective mindset that, like that of the Germans, demonized Jews.

Drawing conclusions about the Palestinians need not obligate us to mimic their hatred by dehumanizing them. But it does oblige us to be honest about their national culture and demand that it be changed before they are allowed to have any power to inflict further harm on others or themselves.

Faced with total defeat and with their country in ruins, the Germans did change and put their Nazi past behind them, even if not all of those responsible for the Holocaust were held accountable. The Palestinians, however, will never change until the civilized world stops coddling them and making excuses for their culture of death, hate and intransigent dedication to perpetual war on the Jews.

After the latest examples of their collective depravity—the slaughter of an old man, a young mother and her two babies—they should be made to see that a failure to transform their national culture will be punished with policies that will have permanent consequences for their national life and ambitions. The alternative is to doom both Israelis and Palestinians to another century of pointless conflict and more sick exhibitions of hate such as the one that Hamas staged to celebrate the deaths of innocents.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Ponder How the Bibas Boys Died
I have spent my life witnessing and reporting on the most atrocious crimes, from Bosnia to Somalia, Syria to Algeria and now Ukraine. After Oct. 7—after seeing the burned kibbutzim and gathering the testimonies of survivors—I was often asked if I had ever experienced anything similar. When I think of Kfir and Ariel Bibas and their mother, Shiri, I now answer: No, I’m not sure I have ever encountered such horror.

Consider those phrases “child hostage” and “baby hostage.” In other wars, the death of a child is the ultimate shame, and some remnant of humanity—or rationality—generally prevents captors from bothering with an infant. They abandon the baby. They leave it behind or on the roadside. Someone less hardened might even leave it wrapped in a blanket outside a church, a mosque or a home. Here, they deliberately took the time to abduct these two terrified little beings clinging to their mother.

What went through these men’s minds as they dragged them away like animals? Did they understand the Jewish devotion to children? Had they seen, during their surveillance, how Jewish children are cherished, how beautiful little boys are with their long hair cut the day they are given honey-covered letters to make them love Hebrew? Did they foresee the images of Kfir, 9 months, and Ariel, 4, covering the walls of our cities? Did they revel, in advance, at the outpouring of “Jewish emotion” that this insult to the world’s innocence would unleash? I don’t know.


Israel confirms Red Cross received remains Hamas claims is Shiri Bibas's
Israel and Hamas senior official have confirmed that the Red Cross was handed over remains by Hamas's al-Qassam brigades on Friday evening.

The IDF said that they are in contact with the Bibas family. "We emphasize the family’s request to show responsibility and not publish unauthorized reports, that could harm the efforts," the IDF said.

Teams at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine, including Director Dr. Chen Kugel, specialist doctors, and the DNA laboratory team, arrived at the Institute and are preparing to begin the testing process, the hospital announced.

The Red Cross had informed Israel that Hamas called for them, an Israeli official said.

The Forensic Medicine Center's teams are preparing for the remains to be identified and give their results as soon as possible, the Health Ministry announced in a statement.

"These are difficult hours of uncertainty," the Head of the Mental Health Division at the Health Ministry, Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer said. "Uncertainty can and may cause us to become restless and stressed. In order to deal with uncertainty, we naturally and healthily try to cling to every possible certainty.

"We recommend supporting those around us, friends and family, and also distracting ourselves from what is uncertain (such as horror videos, rumors, commentaries or statements by Hamas), by engaging in what is certain and good for us."
Trump 'horrified' by return of Bibas children, Security Advisor Mike Waltz says
President Donald Trump is 'horrified' by the scenes coming out of Israel following the return of the Bibas children's bodies on Thursday, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said Friday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"His heart breaks," Waltz said of Trump. "My message, President Trump's message to those families, we are with you."

Waltz said that Hamas's return of the Bibas children's bodies, without their mother Shiri, shows what despicable people Hamas are and why they can never be allowed to run Gaza.

"There is a lot of talk about two states. You know who doesn't want two states, who will never allow two states? Hamas," Waltz said. "And this is why they can never, they just cannot exist, going forward."

Waltz's relief that Netanyahu didn't listen to Biden
Waltz said "thank god" that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't listen to the Biden-Harris administration, and as a result of Trump's leadership and Israel's leadership, Hezbollah in Iran is now decimated.

"I mean, the beeper operation is going to go down in history," he added. "That was one of the greatest ones in history."

Waltz noted Trump's recent executive order returning to the maximum pressure campaign against Iran to start "keeping a foot on the neck of the Iranian economy."
Hamas Terrorists 'Brutally Murdered' Bibas Children With Their Hands, IDF Announces
Hamas terrorists viciously murdered the Bibas family's two small children, nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel, just weeks after taking the children hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel announced on Friday. While Hamas had long claimed that an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed the Bibas children, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said "forensic findings" show Hamas terrorists killed them "with their bare hands."

"Contrary to Hamas's lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike. Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by terrorists in cold blood," Hagari said in a somber video statement. "The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys—they killed them with their bare hands."

"Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities," he continued. "This assessment is based on both forensic findings from the identification process and intelligence that supports these findings. We have shared these findings, intelligence, and forensics with our partners around the world so they can verify it."



Israel examined the bodies of Kfir and Ariel late Thursday after Hamas returned their remains under an unraveling ceasefire deal. Hamas terrorists paraded their coffins through the Gaza Strip before throngs of cheering Palestinians and uniformed gunmen.

Hamas also said it was returning the body of the boys’ deceased mother, Shiri Bibas. When the Jewish state examined the bodies, it became clear that Hamas had returned an "unidentified" body that was neither Bibas nor any other Israeli hostage. Israel's military described the disturbing revelation as a "violation of utmost severity."

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "revenge" for Hamas’s crimes.

"As the prime minister of Israel, I vow that I will not rest until the savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice. They do not deserve to walk this earth. Nothing will stop me. Nothing," Netanyahu said in a Friday statement.

"These Hamas monsters also cynically refused to bring back the boys’ mother, Shiri, and sent the body of a Gazan woman instead, in brazen violation of the agreement," Netanyahu said.
Hamas put propaganda material in hostages’ coffins, Israel fumes to mediators
In addition to the gleeful ceremony ridden with propaganda in which Hamas this morning paraded the caskets of four Israeli civilian hostages, including two young kids, the terror group inserted additional propaganda material into the coffins it handed back to Israel, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

After Israeli officials found the material inside, Jerusalem reportedly contacted the mediators of the current ceasefire and hostage deal — Egypt, Qatar and the United States — and demanded stern action against what it says was a desecration of the sanctity of the dead.


Bethany Mandel: Brooklyn’s depraved pro-Hamas fiends back the slaughter of babies
On Tuesday night, anti-Israel agitators descended on the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn, ostensibly to protest a real-estate event.

In reality, they were protesting the very existence of the Jewish state, and Jews writ large.

You wouldn’t know it from that violent scene, but a cease-fire is currently in effect in Gaza.

It has held for over a month to facilitate the exchanges of Israeli hostages for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists serving time in Israeli jails for committing attacks.

Those Brooklyn demonstrators don’t wish for peace, but for destruction and more death.

“There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” an organizer yelled through a megaphone.

The crowd shouted, “Settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone.”

These violent protests didn’t occur in a vacuum.

They came as the Jewish world was reeling on learning the fate of the Bibas family after more than 500 days of uncertainty.

The video of the Oct. 7, 2023, abduction of Shiri Bibas and her two young redheaded sons — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months — flashed around the world, a symbol of the true depravity of the attacks.
The day after …
Palestinians should be reminded that the government of Israel announced large rewards and safe passage for Palestinian civilians who gave information about the hostages to the IDF. Not one single person came forward. Some hostages were at times imprisoned in “civilian” spaces—forced to cook, clean and watch after Palestinian children in homes in Gaza—including UNRWA spaces, Mr. Guterres. And still, crickets.

For those who say, “Well, the Gaza ‘civilians’ were oppressed by Hamas, so they were afraid to speak out,” note that in every hideous country of Europe during the Holocaust, brave and threatened civilians hid Jews, fed Jews and sheltered Jews. The Garden of the Righteous Among Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem tells their stories of bravery and decency. There will be no Palestinian counterpart.

There were Arab voices, and herein lies hope.

Even before the Abraham Accords were signed in the fall of 2020, there have been voices in the Arab world calling sincerely for coexistence and friendship between Muslim Arabs and Israelis, including its Jewish and non-Jewish population. It is an amazing group of people who stayed the course, even after Oct. 7.

Amjad Taha, political strategist and analyst from the United Arab Emirates; Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni and Swedish journalist, columnist and influence; Hayder Alasadi, the founder and CEO of the Iraqi-Israeli Association of Peace; Bassam Eid, a Palestinian who comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Israeli TV and radio; and a few others (not many) can have a garden. They were joined Friday by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who said, “What we saw today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah.”

So, now what?

Bible study. Deuteronomy. “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”

Vengeance is His, but the instrument of His wrath is likely here on Earth.
The shadow of history
On Oct. 6, 1943, Heinrich Himmler delivered a chilling speech to Nazi leaders justifying the murder of Jewish children. Eighty years later, on Oct. 6, 2023, Hamas senior leader Yahya Sinwar reportedly issued a similarly horrific order to his followers—not only to kill Jewish children but to kidnap them. This stark parallel underscores the persistent and brutal nature of antisemitic violence, revealing its continued threat in the modern era.

In his speech, Himmler rationalized the mass murder of Jewish families, stating: “I would not consider myself justified if I killed the adults … and then allowed their children to grow up and seek revenge against our own children and grandchildren. We have therefore decided to make this people disappear from the face of the earth.”

This ideology led to the systematic murder of 1.5 million Jewish children during World War II and the Holocaust, many slaughtered in their mothers’ arms or subjected to brutal conditions in concentration and death camps. The echoes of this horror resonate today as Hamas targets Jewish children in its acts of terror. During the attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli communities, burning families alive, mutilating victims and abducting children, the youngest a 9-month-old baby. These actions were driven by religious hatred, not strategic warfare.

Despite the outcry over these atrocities, the response from international organizations and human-rights groups has been tepid at best. While antisemitic violence surges across the Western world—from violence in Amsterdam to hostility against Jewish students on university campuses and professionals in the workplace—many institutions remain silent. The plight of the Bibas family and other kidnapped children was largely ignored by feminist and child-welfare organizations, exposing a deep hypocrisy in global advocacy for human rights.

Unlike during the Holocaust, when the Jewish people had no means to resist, modern-day Israel has a strong military and the determination to fight for its survival and the survival of the Jewish people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a decisive response to Oct. 7, learning from past failures of underestimating threats. Israel has faced international criticism, yet it refuses to be deterred in its mission to eliminate Hamas. The accusations of colonialism, genocide and apartheid levied against the Jewish state have failed to intimidate a nation that understands the cost of inaction.
Stephen Pollard: Hamas’s hostage body switch plumbs new depths of depravity
You do not need me to point out the evil of Hamas. It is there for all to see – most obviously in the events of that day, when it raped, tortured and butchered 1200 Israelis and seized 250 hostages. Last night, the Israeli National Institute of Forensic Medicine revealed that its autopsies on the Bibas children showed they had been “brutally murdered” in captivity in November 2023. It is difficult for anyone normal to imagine a mindset that murders a four year old toddler and a ten month old baby – and then uses their bodies as bait.

It is equally difficult to imagine a mindset that even thinks of substituting the body of a random Palestinian for the children’s murdered mother as a ploy, let alone actually doing it.

But while Hamas’s evil is there for all to see, there are those for whom it is not evil but heroic. As the coffins returned to Israel on Thursday, there was a loud silence from the Free Palestine mob. You will have searched in vain for a word of criticism of the festival of hate staged by Hamas from the likes of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its comrades. Not one single word.

Of course not, because when you are driven by hate, you view the world through a warped lens. Where others see evil, you see heroism. Where others see depravity, you see allies. So while anyone with a shred of decency is repulsed by the sight of a crowd cheering two tiny coffins, you see a victory. And then, when the rest of us are sickened to learn that the coffin with the body of a murdered hostage in fact contains someone completely different, you smile at the ingenuity of the idea. You laugh at the pain of the family and the anguish of the nation.

Because for these people, hate is the driving force. Hatred – to be clear – of Jews. Let us not beat around the bush with euphemisms. The marches are, and have always been, about Jew hate. The hundreds of thousands who assemble under the banner of ‘Free Palestine’ are there, in reality, under the banner of ‘Dead Jews’. Never forget that the PSC first contacted the police to ask for permission to march at 14.50 on October 7 2023, while the massacre was still in progress. Never forget that the first march took place on October 14, before a single Israeli soldier had set foot in Gaza. The motive has always been hate.

What kind of monster, you may ask, watches what we have seen this week in Gaza and sympathises not with Ariel and Kfir Bibas but with their murderers? What kind of monster learns that Shiri Bibas’ body has been swapped and sees nothing wrong? What kind of monster takes to the streets not to protest at the October 7 massacre but against its victims?

We Jews know the answer to those questions because we have known these people for millennia. As the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks put it, Jew hate is a mutating virus – and that virus is today seen on the streets under the label of Free Palestine. We see them. We know them.
If the bodies of babies can’t make the world care about Jewish lives, nothing can
It is not the silence itself that is earth-shattering. It is the discretion to be silent about this, but not of others suffering. It is deliberate, it is considered.

The same people who were convinced Elon Musk is a raving Nazi and were so keen to educate their 201 followers about why his salute was antisemitic, have nothing to say about Hamas kidnapping and murdering Jewish children in cold blood.

More silence when the depravity goes further and forensic testing on the corpses returned by Hamas revealed they were covered in propaganda material and that Shiri is not even the fourth body returned. And nothing when it was revealed that the boys were killed in captivity.

But then If the image of a mother and her children in coffins while the monsters responsible for their death towered over them is not enough to shake the souls of ordinary people into saying something, then what is?

And so here we are again. Another moment in this barbaric timeline of terror and psychological torture where Jews are screaming into a void with mostly each other for company.

Our agony is for the families who have become our own. Shiri was every Jewish mother, her babies were our own. Oded Lifschitz was our peace-loving grandpa. How are generations of Israelis watching this expected to cling on to his unwavering commitment to peace and coexistence.

Meanwhile we have lived, slept and breathed their stories. We have witnessed their families' tireless efforts to get the world to notice their humanity and we have watched ordinary people destroy their posters with a latte in hand.

I will never understand why the image of a terrified mother clutching her babies flanked by frenzied gunmen in plain clothes did not inspire global movements to demand their immediate release. Perhaps if they had we might not be here now.

You will hear Jewish people talk about how October 7 changed everything for them. I fight daily not to let a whirlwind of pain consume me.

I do not want my world to shrink but we are constantly confronting the reality that people are indifferent to our violent murder at best, or defensive of it at worst.

Of course there are friends and allies outside our community who do care, they acknowledge the pain we are feeling, and we cling to them with dear life but they are few.

It feels trite to talk about the people who have spoken out for us and how important they are, because well, only a psychopath doesn’t care about a 9-month-old baby ripped from their bed and murdered by terrorists.

“But Hamas said they were killed in Israeli air strikes” I can see the apologists typing now. And honestly, I pity them.

How devoid of human decency do you have to be to hold anyone other than the murderous terrorist who stole them responsible?
New Statesman: The horror of Hamas’s parade of hostage coffins
Any remaining doubts of the barbarity that underpins Hamas were dispelled by the events of 20 February. Not content with making a show of the release of each small group of hostages kidnapped in Israel on 7 October 2023 – from parading them in front of crowds, to reportedly forcing them to smile in front of cameras as they are handed “goody bags” as a sick memento for their hundreds of days in captivity – these terrorists have even made a spectacle of the bodies of dead children.

Caskets said to be containing the bodies of 84-year-old Oded Lifschitz, 33-year-old Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, were displayed on a stage in central Gaza. Behind them was a banner with an anti-Semitic image of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, depicted as a vampire with blood dripping from his mouth. Beneath the image were photographs of the four murdered hostages, alongside the words: “War criminal Netanyahu & his Nazi army killed them with missiles from Zionist warplanes.”

Ariel was just four years old when he was kidnapped with his mother and nine-month-old baby brother Kfir from the kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel. Hamas reported in November 2023 that both boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but their deaths were never officially confirmed by Israel. Their father, Yarden Bibas, who was held separately, was released earlier this month – one of 19 hostages who have so far been traded as part of the first stage of an attempted ceasefire.

It’s believed that Kfir Bibas was too young even to have dental records that can be checked by Israeli authorities. The pictures of these beautiful red-headed boys have become a symbol of indiscriminate murder and hostage-taking on 7 October. The image of the fear on their and their mother’s faces as they were snatched away from their home, posted with pride by Hamas on social media, is something no one can unsee.
Hamas shows the world why Gaza is beyond saving
Their faces. So young. So beautiful.

Frozen in photographs, they look out — smiling and innocent. Curious about the future. Hours and days, weeks and years they will never see.

The boys will never get married. Get kissed by lovers. Hold jobs.

Celebrate bar mitzvah. Read and write with authority. Ride bikes.

Climb trees. Get old.

I can’t look at the adorable faces of Kfir and Ariel Bibas without crying.

These tiny, ginger-haired children were snatched from the world on Oct. 7, 2023, by terrorists furious that the boys were Jewish. They were seized along with their mother, Shiri Bibas.

Ariel was just 4 years old and Kfir was a mere 9 months when they were murdered by Hamas.

Their bodies were paraded by Hamas on Thursday in a disgusting display of bloodlust and lies.

It was a day of mourning in Israel for the returned innocents.

But in New York City this week, after the release of the tots’ dead bodies and two others’ was announced, a gang of terrorist-supporting Jew-haters protested through Borough Park, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with a predominantly Jewish population.

“Zionists go to hell,” they sang.

Have they no shame? Have they no souls?

Hamas showed the world exactly who they are. They are monsters who kill children and use their coffins as props.
Hamas Wants to Look Strong; But Appearances Can Be Deceiving
The purpose of these elaborate spectacles is clear. Hamas is trying to send the message to the world that it is still in control, that it has not been defeated, and that it still poses an existential threat to the State of Israel. Each of these shocking displays of psychological warfare is intended to deeply disturb the viewer and paint a picture of Hamas’ supposed victory and sustained capabilities in the Gaza Strip.

When fighting, Hamas fighters don Adidas tracksuits. Whenever a ceasefire is announced, Hamas fighters scurry out of tunnels and exchange their civilian clothing for military uniforms. And when there’s a camera on them, they’re suddenly sporting full Hamas garb and claiming victory over Israel. The world must understand, however, that Hamas’s attempted shows of force are nothing but smoke and mirrors.

In the last 500 days of fighting, the IDF has made significant progress toward weakening Hamas and other Iran-backed proxy terror groups.

Hamas has been largely isolated for the moment, and had many of its battalions destroyed. Today, the organization still operates as a ragtag insurgent group, hiding in tunnels and conducting guerrilla warfare attacks, but lacks real capabilities to inflict damage on the State of Israel. That could change in the future, but as of now, Hamas is much less powerful than it was on October 6, 2023.

In addition, Iran’s other proxy-terror groups have been weakened. Hezbollah has been eviscerated. Yemen’s Houthis have been bombarded by American, Israeli, and British airstrikes, and the Iranian regime itself is in a moment of unprecedented weakness. Hamas’ only remaining leverage is the fact that it is brutally holding dozens of hostages in underground tunnels.

Hamas’ theatrics are provocative and jarring, but they are not representative of the group’s true capabilities. Hamas has not achieved victory over Israel. Once the terror group has released every hostage they are holding, they will have nothing left to bargain with.

The moderate Arab nations have signaled a willingness to advance a post-war Gaza that sidelines Hamas in favor of moderate governance, while US President Donald Trump pushes a far-fetched plan for the US to “own” Gaza. Now is the time for Israel to focus on ensuring the safe release of every last hostage from Gaza. After they’re free, the focus must shift to ensuring Hamas retains no control over Gaza whatsoever post-war, ensuring a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians who are willing to reject terrorism and focus on a better life for their children and community.
THE SUN SAYS Can anyone still doubt the monstrous evil of Hamas after parading coffins of children they slaughtered?
Evil’s disciples CAN anyone still doubt the monstrous, depraved evil of Hamas after they paraded the coffins of the tiny Jewish children they ­kidnapped and slaughtered?

Those masked, subhuman ghouls — cheered by dancing Gazans high on the raging anti-Semitic hate they were raised to feel — even sickeningly blamed Israel for the deaths of Shiri Bibas, baby Kfir, toddler Ariel and Oded Lifshitz.

Only the dimmest people buy that.

Hamas, a cancer at the heart of the Middle East, kidnapped the Bibas ­family from their home and dragged them deep into a war zone.

The idea that anyone else murdered them is a disgusting perversion of the truth.

But some really are that dim. Some refuse even now to believe Hamas are a wicked, genocidal cult.

There they are on the London hate marches, feigning to want peace but in fact supporting the psychopaths they romanticise as heroic “resistance” to “oppression”.

One day perhaps those naïve posers in Palestine scarves will look back with abhorrence on a youth misspent backing baby-killing Islamist cut-throats.

Sadly they are more likely to get jobs at the BBC. There, Gaza documentaries are commissioned which turn out — ­surprise, surprise — to be Hamas propaganda.

One star was a terrorist leader’s son. Another was also a Hamas stooge.

It is staggering this filth was ever screened... appalling that we funded it through the hated licence fee.

Shame on Hamas. Shame too on all their useful idiots across the West.
US official warns Hamas will face ‘total annihilation’ if they don’t release all hostages after Shiri Bibas’ body wasn’t returned
A US official warned Hamas would face “total annihilation” if all hostages — living and dead — were not returned to Israel as the terror group failed to return the body of slain mother Shiri Bibas on Thursday.

Adam Boehler, President Trump’s special envoy for hostages, issued the stark threat hours after the Israel Defense Forces positively identified the bodies of Bibas’ children, Ariel and Kfir, and hostage Oded Lifshitz — but also received an “anonymous, unidentified body.”

“It’s horrific. It’s a clear violation and if I have one piece of advice for Hamas now, it’s ‘You need to release her body immediately,'” Boehler told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Boehler called for the immediate release of all hostages including the bodies of four Americans killed during their captivity in the Gaza Strip and Edan Alexander, a New Jersey native believed to be alive.

“If I were (Hamas), I would release everybody or they are going to face total annihilation right now,” Boehler warned.

Boehler recommended Israel make demands of Hamas through “every country that’s coordinating” to get the remaining hostages and bodies back to the Jewish state.

The terror group was expected to transfer Bibas’ body Thursday morning during a propaganda-filled exchange, parading the bodies in the Gaza Strip, but Israeli officials revealed her body was not one of the four inside the black coffins.

“During the identification process, it was determined that the additional body received is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body,” the IDF said.

“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” the defense forces added. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.”


PM vows to avenge blood of slain captives, bring home Shiri Bibas
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday morning eulogized slain hostages octogenarian Oded Lifshitz and children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and vowed to bring home the boys’ mother, Shiri Bibas, from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds. Not only did they kidnap the father, Yarden Bibas, the young mother, Shiri, and their two small babies. In an unspeakably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri to her little children, the little angels, and they put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin,” said Netanyahu in a video message to the nation.

“We will work resolutely to bring Shiri home together with all our abductees—both living and dead—and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement. The sacred memory of Oded Lipshitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will be forever enshrined in the heart of the nation. God will avenge their blood,” he continued.

The body that Israel received from Hamas on Thursday, which the terrorist organization said was that of Shiri Bibis, belongs to an unidentified person, the Israel Defense Forces said on Friday morning.

The National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv and the Israel Police identified two of the four returned bodies as Ariel and Kfir, whom terrorists “brutally murdered” in captivity in November 2023, the Israeli military said. At that time, the boys would have been ages 4 years and 10 months, respectively.


Bibas family speaks out for first time since identification of Kfir and Ariel Bibas
Yarden Bibas’s sister, Ofri Bibas, responded Friday for the first time to the identification findings from the forensic institute regarding the remains of her young nephews, Ariel and Kfir—after it was revealed that the identification results for Shiri Bibas did not match the body that was returned to Israel.

"I’m sorry, Luli," Bibas wrote on her Facebook account. "I’m sorry, Firfir. None of this was deserved. We will miss you forever. We will not give up on Mom, Shiri."

"Yesterday, we received the devastating news of Ariel and Kfir’s murder in captivity. We waited for certainty, but there is no comfort in it—only immense sorrow. My sweet nephews were kidnapped alive from their homes and murdered in captivity by a cruel terrorist organization. They did not deserve such a fate," Ofri Bibas wrote.

"Our painful journey, which has lasted for 16 months, is not over yet. October 7 is still ongoing. We are still waiting for Shiri and fear for her fate. Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were abducted alive by a murderous terrorist organization, and it was the responsibility and duty of the State of Israel to bring them back alive.

"There is no forgiveness for their abandonment on October 7, and there is no forgiveness for their abandonment in captivity."


Seth Mandel joins Hugh to discuss the murders of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz

Call me Back Podcast - with Dan Senor: The Tragic End of the Bibas Story - with Matti Friedman
This morning in Gaza, in a ceremony that was even more twisted than those that came before it, Hamas paraded four coffins, containing the dead bodies of four hostages who were killed in captivity, before handing them over to the Red Cross. Israel then received the remains of Oded Lifshitz, an 83-year-old peace activist abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz; and the bodies of the iconic young mother Shiri Bibas, and her boys, Kfir and Ariel, who were respectively 9 months old and 4 years old at the time of their abduction, also from Nir Oz, which lost a quarter of its residents on October 7, 2023.

Shiri, Kfir and Ariel came to symbolize Hamas’s brutality and the helplessness of the victims of October 7. Oded was also a symbol of the many men and women who had dedicated their lives to seeking peace with the Palestinians, and whose lives were brutally ended by Palestinians on that darkest of days.

In a year of somber days, today is one of the more difficult ones we have experienced - here at Call Me Back, and as a nation. We are joined today to process this wrenching moment by a Call Me Back favorite: Matti Friedman, to help us understand what this day means for Israel, and how it will change us and the stories we tell ourselves about Israel and our hopes for peace.

Matt Friedman is an award-winning journalist and author of four books. He is based in Jerusalem, and writes a column for The Free Press. Read his latest, “The Family That Never Came Home,”

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
2:40 - The stories of the hostages returned today
7:14 - Reactions to the hand-over of the coffins today
12:04 - Why the Bibas became the symbols that they are
15:26 - Seth Mandel’s commentary about the Bibas
21:23 - What explains the ‘surprise,’ considering the estimations were that they are dead?
25:52 - How Israeli children experience this moment
28:36 - How this may influence sentiment in Israel and the next phase of the deal
35:00 - What will be the long-term effects of today’s events on Israeli society?
38:25 - Outro


'Another level of barbarism': Israel says remains of Shiri Bibas not returned by Hamas
Co-Chief Executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Alex Ryvchin has condemned Hamas's latest act of “deplorable” inhumanity.

The Israel Defence Forces claims it has been misled by Hamas after they received an anonymous body from the terrorist organisation instead of the remains of hostage Shiri Bibas.

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons Ariel and Kfir - from the Niz Or kibbutz during the Palestinian militant group's incursion into Israel in October 2023.

Israel was expecting the remains of four hostages - Shiri Bibas, as well as her two sons and 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, to be returned on Thursday.

“To learn that the family has now been denied the closure of being able to bury the mother with the children and begin to heal in some way – and that Hamas has pulled this inhuman ruse. It's just another level of barbarism they've added,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News Australia.


‘Grotesque’ reality of Hamas' actions: Israel says body released by terror group is not of a hostage
The recent events surrounding the return of the bodies of Israeli hostages from Hamas have been nothing short of “grotesque” and “repugnant”, Sky News host Chris Kenny.

According to the Israel Defence Forces it has been misled by Hamas after they received an anonymous body from the terrorist organisation instead of the remains of hostage Shiri Bibas.

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons Ariel and Kfir - from the Niz Or kibbutz during the Palestinian militant group's incursion into Israel in October 2023.

Israel was expecting the remains of four hostages - Shiri Bibas, as well as her two sons and 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, to be returned on Thursday.

The additional body was not that of their mother Shiri Bibas, nor any other hostage, the military said.

"It's unthinkable just how grotesque and repugnant this episode has become," Mr Kenny said.

"This is just so grotesque and if anybody has any doubts about the horrific Islamist extremist group that has been running Gaza and continues to run Gaza, well, here's your evidence to the contrary."


Israel Advocacy Movement: SHOCKING: Gazans Turns Bibas Exchange into Cruel Celebration



Argentina Declares National Day of Mourning to Honor Israeli-Argentine Bibas Children Killed in Hamas Captivity
Argentina has declared two days of national mourning for the brothers Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two young children with dual Israeli-Argentine citizenship whose dead bodies were returned to Israel on Thursday by Hamas terrorists who kidnapped them a year and a half ago.

Also returned to Israel on Thursday was a dead body that Hamas claimed belonged to their mother, Shiri Bibas, 32. It was revealed later on Thursday by the Israel Defense Forces that the received body “is not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body.” The body of deceased Hamas hostage and Israeli citizen Oded Lifshitz, 84, was also returned to Israel on Thursday.

Ariel was 4 years old and Kfir was 10 months old at their time of death, according to the IDF. They are Argentinian by way of their father, Yarden Bibas, who was also abducted during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, before being freed earlier this month as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Kfir was abducted when he was 9 months old, making him the youngest hostage kidnapped by terrorists from Israel during the Oct. 7 massacre and the youngest to have been killed.

“I am informed by the government that they will wait for official information on the DNA results of the bodies and that, if confirmed, Argentina will then declare a National Day of Mourning in their honor, ” Sabrina Ajmeche, president of the Argentine Commission for Human Rights, said Wednesday on X.

In a separate post announcing Argentine President Javier Milei’s decision to declare a day of national mourning for the Bibas children, she said, “Thank you, President, for your commitment to democracy, to freedom, to Western values ​​and to the fight against terrorism.”

“Kfir and Ariel were both Argentine citizens,” she added. “Two Argentine babies killed by Hamas terrorism. I hope that after this I never have to hear again that what happens in Israel and Gaza is not our business, or that of all Argentines.”


Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti makes shocking statement against Hamas: "What we saw today is a disgrace"
In a recent declaration, he emphasized that the violence and terror witnessed in Gaza are entirely contrary to the teachings of Islam, stating, "What we saw today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah, and a sin that does not represent the followers of the Prophet, peace be upon him, or the honorable religion of Islam."

Al-Sheikh continued by asserting that Islam promotes respect for all life, even for non-Muslims, and the actions of Hamas completely contradict this fundamental value. He further declared that Hamas has deviated from the path of Islam, turning its back on the principles that define the faith.

This isn't the first time that the Grand Mufti has taken a strong stance against violence and terrorism in the name of Islam. In 2017, Al-Sheikh issued a fatwa (religious ruling) condemning the fighting against Jews as forbidden and explicitly named Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. This stance echoed his previous fatwa in 2013, in which he labelled suicide bombers as "criminals who rush themselves to hell by their actions," further distancing Islamic teachings from extremist violence.


Media Ignored the Most Disturbing Part of Hamas’ Handover of Israeli Remains—In Gaza, It Was ‘Family-Friendly’ Entertainment
Editors Note: This article was published before it was announced that the body inside Shiri Bibas’ coffin was not hers. It has not been identified as any known hostage.

The most harrowing moment of the hostage releases came on the morning of Thursday, February 20, when the tragic fate of the Bibas children and their mother was all but confirmed.

From the outset, the faces of Shiri Bibas and her two flame-haired sons became emblematic of the horror unleashed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The footage of a terrified mother, desperately clutching Ariel, 4, and his baby brother Kfir, as a mob of armed Palestinian civilians closed in, made one thing clear: on that day, no Israeli was too young or too innocent to be spared.

Hamas staged yet another one of its grotesque performances that have defined these so-called “exchanges.” If the sight of Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami—so emaciated they were compared to Holocaust survivors—had already shocked the world, what followed was worse.

Infinitely worse.

Four black coffins. One each for Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, and for Oded Lifshitz, who had also been kidnapped from Nir Oz. Behind them, the macabre scene was complete: an antisemitic mural, crudely depicting Israel’s prime minister as a blood-sucking vampire, loomed over the stage. The final indignity, as Hamas desecrated even the bodies of its most defenseless victims.

The international media covered Thursday morning’s appalling spectacle as they have all the others. While Israeli networks refuse to broadcast these grotesque propaganda displays, Western outlets continue to oblige.

It is difficult to imagine these same outlets uncritically airing the staged performances of any other terrorist group banned in their own countries. But when Israel is the victim of terrorism, double standards always seem to apply.

For weeks, we have called out the media’s insistence on drawing a false moral equivalency between Israeli hostages—civilians kidnapped during Hamas’ massacre—and Palestinian prisoners released as part of the ceasefire agreement. Most of these prisoners are convicted terrorists, serving multiple life sentences for mass-casualty attacks stretching back to before the Second Intifada.


Most Israelis fear Oct.7-style massacre could happen in Judea and Samaria
More than two in three Israeli Jews fear that Palestinian terrorists based in Judea and Samaria could launch a significant terrorist attack similar to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre near the Gaza Strip, according to a poll the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs published this week.

The survey, which was conducted by the Lazar Research Institute and was first published in Hebrew on Tuesday, surveyed a representative sample of some 700 Israelis—Arabs and Jews—between Feb. 11 and 13.

Sixty-eight percent of the Jewish respondents have concerns about a large-scale terrorist attack emanating from Judea and Samaria, while a quarter of the state’s Arab minority fear this scenario.

The JCFA poll also found that, in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, 67% of Israeli citizens oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the country’s pre-1967 borders. Three-fourths of Jews are against creating a “Palestine,” while 16% of Arab Israelis declared they oppose the move.

“The survey suggests that, for most Israelis, the fear of another attack is not just a far-fetched scenario, but a tangible threat that must be taken into account in formulating a clear strategy to ensure the security of [Israeli] residents,” the Jerusalem-based think tank commented.
Netanyahu orders ‘massive’ counter-terror op after bus bombings
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday night ordered the military to conduct a “massive” counter-terrorism operation in Judea and Samaria, after three buses exploded near Tel Aviv and bombs were found on two others in what is being investigated as a coordinated attack.

There were no injuries as the explosions were apparently mistimed.

Netanyahu also instructed the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Israel Police to step up “preventive activities” against possible additional attacks across the country.

The Shin Bet on Friday arrested three people, including at least one Palestinian and one Jewish Israeli, suspected of driving a terrorist to the Tel Aviv area.

The Palestinian suspect was in Israel illegally.

The Shin Bet did not comment on the reports, citing the ongoing investigation.

Following a situational assessment on Thursday, the IDF said its operations in Judea and Samaria were ongoing, and that areas within the territories have been closed off. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi instructed forces to assist the Israel Police as necessary.


Turkey thwarts ISIS terror plot against Jewish targets
Police arrested a suspected Islamic State member in Istanbul on Thursday who was planning to attack Jewish targets in Turkey, the Daily Sabah reported.

Police said a high-ranking ISIS member instructed the suspect to plan large-scale terrorist attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools in Turkey and European countries, although no timeline was specified.

The suspect, identified as Uzbek national Abdulmalik A., was apprehended in a raid in the city’s Fatih district after authorities intercepted coded messages exchanged between him and suspected ISIS terrorists.

The suspect was a member of ISIS’s so-called Asia branch and entered Turkey legally from a European country, according to the report.

Istanbul’s counterterrorism police placed him under surveillance after receiving a tip he was planning a “sensational” attack.

Authorities are currently pursuing his handlers and other terrorists he was in contact with in Turkey.

On Nov. 15, 2003, Al-Qaeda terrorists detonated bombs at two Istanbul synagogues, Neve Shalom and Beth Yaakov, killing 28 people and wounding more than 300 others.
Commentary PodCast: Israel's Stark Choices
Jonathan Schanzer joins us after the monstrous day in which Gazans danced around the coffins of a baby and a toddler who, we learned, had both been shot in the head more than a year ago—and around the coffin in which, as it turned out, their mother's body had not been placed. What will the rage and horror inside Israel mean for the continuation of war-fighting in Gaza—and should Israel look beyond Hamas to deliver a deadly blow to Iran instead?




Israeli colonel has chilling message for the West | Think Twice
Hamas thinks it has won the war it started on Oct. 7, 2023. That’s the conclusion of Col Grisha Yakubovich, the retired Israeli officer and strategic analyst who joined JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice. Yakubovich believes that Hamas intends to keep fighting to destroy Israel. That’s a fact that U.S. President Donald Trump needs to take this into account when seeking to promote his reconstruction plan that calls for the Palestinian Arabs who live in the Gaza Strip to be resettled elsewhere.


Is an English CIVIL WAR coming? Interview w/Reverend Hayley Ace | The Quad
Reverend Hayley Ace joins host and Israel innovation envoy, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, for an in-depth discussion of the latest controversies around grooming gangs, two-tier policing and antisemitism that’s spinning out of control in England. Reverend Hayley Ace and her husband are the spiritual leaders of Lea Valley Church and the founders of Christian Action Against Antisemitism. You don’t want to miss this interview!


Aussie Muslim groups defend nurses who said they murder Israelis
The actions of two Australian nurses who last week said on camera that they don’t treat and indeed murder Israeli patients shocked their nation, eliciting passionate condemnations from the country’s top politicians, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

On Monday, Australia’s foremost Muslim groups also weighed in, defending the nurses from what they called the “hypocrisy” of the nurses’ critics. Subsequently, a prominent opposition politician called for defunding the Muslims groups that had defended the pair.

The debate about the nurses coincides with a wave of antisemitic incidents in Australia in recent weeks, which has included the torching of a synagogue and the discovery of explosives in a caravan police said was to be used in an attack on Jews. Many of the incidents featured references to Israel.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and the Islamic councils of Victoria and Western Australia joined dozens of other groups, including the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir pro-jihadist group, in a statement.

The letter defending the nurses, who have been suspended and are facing a criminal investigation, prompted fresh criticism by observers, who called it a defense of antisemitism and racism and a demonstration of the depth of Australia’s antisemitism problem.

Sen. James Paterson of the center-right Liberal Party, which is in the opposition, on Wednesday called for “funding to be stripped from Muslim organizations” that signed the statement. “It is alarming that so many representative bodies and Muslim community leaders think it is appropriate to downplay the seriousness of the nurses’ misconduct,” Paterson wrote.

The cosignatories of the statement said the nurses—Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh—“breached the codes of conduct of medical professionals,” but went on to criticise “the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity.”

The statement was titled, “We condemn the hypocrisy over the nurses controversy.”




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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