The endless cruelty of Hamas
Outrage, shock and rage are some of the feelings expressed by millions of citizens around the world when they saw the new staging deployed by the Hamas terrorist group for the handover of the bodies of four hostages from the brutal and merciless attack on October 7, 2023. It is the first time since their attack on Israel that the terrorists have returned the dead, a sombre turn that distances Israel from the usual joy of former captives returning home alive.
The cruel ceremony took place in front of a crowd of civilians and armed Palestinian terrorists gathered around the stage. The four closed black coffins, marked with photos of the deceased, were placed on a platform. In the background, a giant photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, drawn as a vampire with blood between his teeth, and the caption in Arabic, Hebrew and English: “The war criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi army murdered them with missiles from their warplanes.”
The horrific scene sparked reactions in Israel and around the world. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said the terrorists' organised act violated international humanitarian law. Any handover of mortal remains must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, guaranteeing respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families. In this case, it was a cruel and unacceptable act of propaganda, as the UN rightly defined.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reiterated its call for the handover of hostages and bodies to be carried out in privacy and with dignity. “We must be clear: any degrading treatment during liberation operations is unacceptable,” the ICRC said firmly. The display of coffins as if they were war trophies is absolutely reprehensible.
Hamas terrorists claimed that the four coffins contained the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, 83, and Shiri Bibas and their two sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months. Israeli forensic experts exposed the macabre deception by confirming the identities of the man and the Bibas brothers, but not that of the mother. It took almost 24 hours for Hamas to send a new body, which turned out to be that of Shiri Bibas.
Both the mother and the children were forcibly removed from the kibbutz where they lived, as recorded on a video in which their desperate mother holds them in her arms. The father, recently released, believed that they had been hidden and safe. They said that the children had died as a result of the bombings from Israel. Forensic examinations proved that they had been strangled and then mutilated to make the terrorists' version credible. They were taken alive and returned in coffins.
Hamas has once again revealed its true criminal nature. Its hatred and refusal to seek peace were once again demonstrated in the violent attack in October 2023 when the terrorists did not hesitate to kill, decapitate, mutilate, rape and burn alive more than a thousand residents of southern Israel.
Last Saturday, terrorists freed six Israeli citizens held captive in Gaza, thus completing the first phase of a fragile ceasefire agreement, but not before carrying out a calculated act of psychological torture, forcing two hostages to witness the release of Israelis from the last group released, generating widespread condemnation.
We are faced with a terrorist organisation that keeps the Palestinian population subjugated and the Israeli population under constant threat. As long as their aim is to eliminate the Israeli people as they claim, Israel will continue to use its military power to defend itself. In a world tired of wars, with all their terrible consequences, it is time for rationality to overcome fanaticism in order to calm passions whose intensity has stifled efforts for a lasting peace in the region.
lanacion
