Jewish communities and organizations across the world mourned the deaths of four Israeli hostages as their remains were repatriated on Thursday as part of an agreement with Hamas but expressed outrage over a Gazan ceremony in which the coffins were paraded before crowds.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said on Thursday that the image of caskets allegedly containing the bodies of Oded Lifschitz and Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel Bibas being displayed in Gaza demonstrated Hamas’s brutality and inhumanity.
“While Israel is forced to release convicted terrorists – many who have taken innocent lives – Hamas is returning bodies, including those of babies. No deal can obscure this reality.
Hamas is not a political movement. It is not a resistance group. It is a death cult, driven by a singular mission: the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Jews,” said Lauder.
“There is no future with Hamas. Only once it is gone can all people in the region hope to build something better. As we mourn Ariel, Kfir, Shiri, and Oded, we must channel our grief into action. Every remaining hostage must be brought home – immediately. The urgency could not be greater, and the responsibility falls on all of us who refuse to let Hamas’ reign of terror continue.”
The world reacts
Conference of European Rabbis President Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt said it was a tragedy for all when a mother and her children returned from captivity and blamed Hamas for their death.
“The Bibas family will be remembered forever by us and the whole Jewish nation,” said Goldschmidt.
Bnai Brith International said that their hearts were shattered but that their memory of the hostages would never fade.“We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will not rest until every hostage is released,” the Jewish group said Thursday.
As the remains of Lifschitz were identified in Israel, the American Jewish Committee eulogized him as a peace activist who “drove sick Palestinian children to hospitals in Israel for treatment.”
AJC noted on X/Twitter that his wife, Yocheved Lifschitz, was released in a deal with the terrorist group in November.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs said on social media that the Canadian Jewish community mourned the loss of the peace activist, mother, and two young children.
“We take some solace in knowing they return to their loved ones in Israel,” said CIJA. “Yarden Bibas – himself held hostage nearly 500 days – will never be free after his family’s murder.”
The Argentine Israelite Mutual Association offered its support to the relatives, friends, and family of the hostages.
It said the ceremony was unimaginably cruel, and that the Bibas children would be a “permanent symbol of how far hatred can go, but also of the struggle to defend life and human dignity that was carried out to demand the release of the children who were kidnapped.”
The Central Council of Jews in Germany was one of many Jewish representative bodies that invoked the orange hair of the Bibas children with orange coloring and symbols on its social media pages, calling for their names to be shared so that they would not be forgotten.
The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions announced a Friday Paris rally in honor of slain hostages and to call for the release of those still held by Hamas.
“We will tirelessly mobilize until the last hostage is freed,” said CRIF.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews held a vigil outside Downing Street, with Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg demanding, “Where are the NGOs? Do they not know that human rights are universal? Or is it to them that Jews don’t count?”
Some organizations and communities, such as the Jewish Federations of North America, said that out of respect for the families, they would withhold commentary for the time being.