March 26, 2025, Dr. Susanna Kokkonen
There is one story, one particular story for each period or each year. Usually, the story is accompanied by an image.
And what would be the enduring image we have of the beginning of 2025? Among the many stories and images, there is one family everyone has heard of. This is a family that suffered untold cruelty at the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas.
But before I go into that, allow me to elaborate on what we mean by the enduring images we have of each year or event. Let us think about the Holocaust Garden of Hope. Even as we study the past, one of the things that we remember mostly from it are images. In the garden images are far more prominent than the texts accompanying them.
When we study the Holocaust for example, most of us remember the Gate of Auschwitz or the little boy of the Warsaw Ghetto with his raised hands standing in front of a Nazi officer. The image has become an iconic image of the Holocaust. There are some other such images.
In terms of the beginning of 2025 there are images of a family becoming the visual representation of what happened on October 7, 2023. The images are the visual idea that will remain of this period. It includes October 7 and then the aftermath, which is still being played out in front of our very eyes.
The family in question is the BIBAS Family and they were captured by Hamas terrorists during the attack of October 7th, 2023. They lived in the kibbutz of Nir Oz in southern Israel and this was one of the places that faced a horrific attack by Hamas. The mother Shiri was captured with her two small baby children Ariel and Kfir and we know now that they were all murdered by Hamas. Yarden, the father survived. Kfir was only 9 months old, Ariel was four years old.
There is shocking footage shot by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Men with guns are surrounding the 32-year-old mother Shiri and her two small children. This is a very evocative image of a mother trying to protect her children in an impossible situation. There is another footage later that same day where they are already in Gaza.
Hamas’ cruelty truly knows no bounds. They claimed in November 2024 that an Israeli airstrike killed Shiri and her two children. But it emerged at the beginning of 2025 that Hamas terrorists killed the children with their bare hands and then mutilated their bodies to make it look like they had been victims of an air strike. In 2025, as Hamas was returning hostages, to the shock of everyone, they also returned those two little boys. They were dead but DNA tests confirmed their identities. Hamas also returned a woman who was supposed to have been their mother. The body was another woman’s, and Israel returned that body to Gaza. Hamas later returned Shiri’s body to Israel. The authorities confirmed that she also had been killed in captivity.
The funeral attracted huge crowds as everyone in Israel wanted to pay their respects to the family. Sadly, only some of the world chose to be part of this. At Times Square in New York for instance the family’s names appeared on a special billboard during that time. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, as the family were also dual citizens of that country (and Israel) they appeared on a special pillar in a prominent place in the city. Sadly, many of the world’s media chose not to even tell their stories.
Surely this is wrong because what could show the enemy’s character more than what Hamas did to the Bibas children and their mother? Is this not cruelty reminiscent of the past? Does it not show that in each generation we need to be able to confront evil and to fight for what is true and just?
As we are just at the beginning of 2025, like the Bible says, “we have never been this way before”. It is my hope that we will find the resolve to fight the battles for truth and justice for righteousness that will be ahead of us. Let us remember and commit ourselves to remembering. Furthermore, let us speak up and be counted.
