“Our hearts are shattered again,” a Gainesville rabbi said Friday at the news that one of four bodies said to be those of Israeli hostages taken in Israel by Hamas Oc. 7, 2023, was, in fact, not one of them.
“On Thursday, the world witnessed in horror as the bodies…were paraded through jeering crowds, before finally, finally, being brought back home, to us, to Israel,” Nechemia Gurevitz said.”
“Since the shocking and barbaric massacre on October 7th, our hearts have been broken many more times than we can count, and today our hearts are shattered once again. The Bibas family, with their adorable red-headed children, took up residence in our hearts and minds. We prayed for them, we were worried for them, we couldn’t stop thinking about these toddlers and their mother in the tunnels of Gaza.
“And now,” he concluded, our hearts are with Yarden, their father, who returned from Gaza a short time ago.”
Several hours after Gurevitz’s statement, Hamas released a new body claimed to be Shiri Bibas and Israel was beginning attempts to verify that it is hers. And, according to an Israeli official, forensic analysis shows the children were deliberately killed by Hamas terrorists “with their bare hands.” Hamas says all three died in an Israeli airstrike.
(SRN NEWS/AP PHOTO: Mourner at memorial to Shiri Bibas)
(SRN NEWS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY)