[News] There is no evidence Hamas killed members of the Bibas family. Israel is using their death to manufacture

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/there-is-no-evidence-hamas-killed-members-of-the-bibas-family-israel-is-using-their-death-to-manufacture-consent-for-genocide/?ml_recipient=147222297729566427&ml_link=147222211109848692&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-02-24&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
There is no evidence Hamas killed members of the Bibas family. Israel is
using their death to manufacture
Adam Horowitz
February 23, 2025
------------------------------
[image: Bibas_rally_by_Michalle_Sahar-1024x768.jpg]
A rally organized by the NY Hostages and Missing Families Forum, in front
of the NY residence of António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the
United Nations, pleading for his help in releasing the Bibas family, on
December 8, 2023. (Photo: Wikimedia/Michelle Sahar)

Ever since the October 7 attack on Israel, there was one Israeli family
that became the focus of apologists as so-called proof of Hamas being
“human animals” in order to legitimize the Israeli genocide. That family is
the Bibas family.

Its four members, father Yarden, mother Shiri, and the two small children,
4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir, were taken hostage on October 7 at
kibbutz Nir Oz. The mother and two children were reportedly held separately
from the father by the Mujahideen Brigades (an offshoot of the mainstream
Fatah movement). In late November 2023, Hamas claimed that the mother and
the two children had been killed together with their captors under Israeli
bombing, and offered to hand over their bodies
<https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231201-hamas-says-offered-to-hand-over-remains-of-hostage-baby-family>.
Israel rejected the offer as “propaganda” and would not confirm their
deaths. The father was freed during the February 1 prisoner exchange, and
at that point was “still clinging
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/freed-hostage-yarden-bibas-is-clinging-to-hope-for-his-wife-and-young-sons-his-sister-says/>”
to hope that the rest of his family was alive.

Last week, the bodies of the three dead family members were handed over to
Israel. On Friday, the Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed
<https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/israel-at-war/briefings-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari/february-24-press-briefings-1/press-briefing-by-idf-spokesperson-radm-daniel-hagari-february-21-2025-1/>
that the two Bibas brothers were “brutally murdered while being held
hostage in Gaza no later than November 2023.” Hagari was very explicit and
precise in what he claimed was “confirmed”:

“Contrary to Hamas’s lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike –
Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by terrorists in cold blood. The
terrorists did not shoot the two young boys – they killed them with their
bare hands. Afterwards, they committed horrific acts to cover up these
atrocities. This assessment is based on both forensic findings from the
identification process, and intelligence that supports the findings. We
have shared these findings, intelligence and forensics, with our partners
around the world, so they can verify it, and [so] that the entire world
will know exactly how the Hamas terrorist organization operates…”

That is some claim. But where is the evidence to confirm these findings?
None appears to be forthcoming, aside from promises that such proof exists
somewhere.
*Israel’s lack of proof*

On Saturday, the head of the Israeli Institute for Forensic Medicine, Chen
Kugel, made a one-minute video
<https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjqs8dpqjl> to supposedly back the
claims. Kugel’s presentation curiously did not focus on what he found, but
on what he did not find. “There is no evidence of harm due to bombing,” he
said.

Remember, these are bodies of people who died about one and a half years
ago. How exactly one determines that one did *not* die under bombing (which
does not always mean death from direct trauma) is unclear but certainly
requires further explanation as to how it has been definitively ruled out.

The odd thing is that Kugel did not determine what they *did* die of.
Instead, the doctor used his short presentation to wax emotional on how
hard they are working to identify everyone, and added that “We have
encountered abysses of evil and malice that we could not imagine existed”.

The latter is perhaps a statement for a politician, not a medical expert.
The whole statement is so vacuous and devoid of forensic content (beyond
the initial “no evidence”), that it simply reeks of political bias.

And this is supposed to be the confirmation of Hagari’s claim that the
Bibas brothers were killed with “bare hands.”

In his statement, Kugel also said that his office positively identified the
body of Shiri Bibas, the children’s mother. There had been an initial mix-up
in delivery of her body
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/netanyahu-suspends-release-of-600-palestinian-prisoners-over-degrading-handover-ceremony/>which
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed was a deliberate violation of the
ceasefire agreement and that Hamas would “pay the full price
<https://www.nbcnews.com/video/netanyahu-hamas-will-pay-the-full-price-for-not-returning-shiri-bibas-to-israel-232560709661>”
for it. Hamas corrected the error and returned the proper body, which Kugel
was confirming.

Military spokesperson Hagari said that returning the remains of an
“anonymous woman” was “further evidence of Hamas’ barbaric cruelty,” but as
we know Palestinians in Gaza are already used to having delivered bags of
flesh
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/the-fajr-massacre-every-70-kg-bag-of-human-remains-is-considered-a-martyr/>
for burial, and it is not hard to guess the state of such a body under
Israeli indiscriminate bombardment. But Hagari has a story to tell, and the
atrocity propaganda cycle was already well underway.
*Atrocity propaganda*

Israel was already engaging in disgusting atrocity propaganda related to
the Bibas family, when on Friday it changed
<https://www.facebook.com/share/15ioaWuTA3/> the colors on the Foreign
Ministry Twitter/X account to orange, meant to resemble the red-headed
color of the mother’s and children’s hair. If this was a normal country,
this detail would probably be seen as unnecessary to point out, but Israel
is not a normal country and has been engaged in widespread and wholly
discredited atrocity propaganda precisely focused on small children as a
motor for its genocide in Gaza. From manufactured stories of babies baked
in ovens
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-personnel-false-information-7-october-attack>,
to 40 decapitated babies
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/there-is-no-proof-palestinian-fighters-beheaded-babies-the-only-source-is-a-radical-settler/>,
to babies hung on a line, babies thrown in trash cans, and so on. This is
why we should be extremely cautious with any official narrative coming out
of Israel.

And yet this story without proof is already being spun into fact. See, for
example, how master propagandist Fania Oz-Salzberger
<https://x.com/faniaoz/status/1893411710771335373> uses this claim to smear
anyone who supports Palestinians:

“Unable to admit that the Bibas babies were strangulated by hand, they
parrot the lie that the IDF killed them. Another ‘pro-Palestinian’ theory
is that Shiri Bibas killed her own kids. Pity the nation that has such
supporters.”

Now, it is just Palestinians who are “unable to admit,” while she parrots
Israeli propaganda.

But we have seen this before. Israel makes sensational accusations against
Palestinians without proof until the story takes on a life of its own. By
the time people realize the claim is evidence-free, and news outlets
“cannot confirm” the Israeli claim, it is already too late — it has become
a story in its own right.

We are watching Israel use the Bibas family to manufacture consent for
genocide yet again. Will anyone in the media stand up to call them on their
lie?
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