(I wrote this at 9:00am this morning (Feb. 20, 2025). And at 3:27pm, we just learned that the body we thought was Shiri’s is not. Words are escaping me…)
Tikvah, hope. This is what we all held on to for 503 days. We watched on October 7, 2023, the atrocities of Hamas murdering over 1200 and taking hostage 251 people. The images and videos are seared in our minds. And the video of Shiri Bibas, tore our hearts in two. Clinging to her two children, Kfir and Ariel and the look of complete terror. Wanting to protect them and do anything to save them. But she, like the other hostages were dragged into Gaza and the horrors they experienced we will never know except that they were murdered at the hands of monsters.
503 days after they were taken from their beds and home, Shiri, Kfir, Ariel, and Oded Lifschitz, 84 years old, a survivor of the Holocaust and founder of Kibbutz Nir Oz, return to Israel. But it was not without Hamas’ orchestrated show. The stage, the banners, the crowds, the children, the parents, cheering Hamas as four caskets were placed in the vans of the International Red Cross. And to continue the acts of terrorism, the caskets were locked and fake keys were provided.
I kept trying to keep the hope that two little boys would walk out of Gaza and back into the loving arms of their father. I keep hoping that there will someday be peace as talks continue for the second phase of the ceasefire with 59 hostages still in Gaza. But to be honest, today, that hope is fading.
I ask, how can there be peace when parents and grandparents bring their children and babies to a festival-like atmosphere in which four caskets are paraded before them and include the pictures of the children they have murdered? How can parents celebrate and take pictures of their children holding the guns of terrorists? How can there be peace when what is being taught is martyrdom and murder of all ages? Where is the hope?
Maybe it is in the rainbow that was seen minutes before the exchange. From Tel Aviv and from Gaza, a rainbow was seen over the water. And then, at the moment of placing the caskets in the vans, the rain fell.
Was God giving us a sign to not give up? Was God and the angels crying over the loss of Oded, Kfir, and Ariel, z’l? And now asking, where is Shiri? Was God begging us to have just a glimmer of hope? I don’t know. I wish I knew.
