דּוֹדִ֥י צַח֙ וְאָד֔וֹם דָּג֖וּל מֵרְבָבָֽה׃ רֹאשׁ֖וֹ כֶּ֣תֶם פָּ֑ז קְוֻצּוֹתָיו֙ תַּלְתַּלִּ֔ים שְׁחֹר֖וֹת כָּעוֹרֵֽב׃ (שיר השירים ה:י) “My beloved is clear-skinned and ruddy, preeminent among ten thousand. His head is finest radiant gold.” (Song of Songs 5:10)   The image will likely go down in history as one of the iconic images of October 7, 2023, if not all of Jewish history. The sweet, innocent faces of the redheaded Bibas boys and the torn, terror-stricken face of their mother at the moment of the family’s abduction have entered all of our hearts. I generally try to avoid making Holocaust comparisons with anything. However, the picture of Shiri Bibas carrying her two young children in her arms will now join the ranks of such iconic images as the “Jewish Boy Surrenders” photograph that shows a young boy in 1943 with his arms up in the Warsaw Ghetto being held at gunpoint (officially known as: Mit Gewalt aus Bunkern hervorgeholt – “Forcibly pulled out of bunkers”) visibly displaying terror at the hands of merciless persecutors. As Rachel Fink reported in Haaretz, “Shiri was born and raised in Kibbutz Nir Oz to parents Margit and Yossi Silberman, who emigrated to Israel from Argentina before Shiri was born and were murdered on October 7th in their home. In 2012, she met Yarden Bibas through a mutual friend – David Cunio – who was also kidnapped on October 7 and is still being held in Gaza. The couple married in 2018, and their first son, Ariel, was born the following summer. In 2021, the new parents built their dream home on the kibbutz before Kfir came along two years later.” When the terrorists arrived at their home, the Bibas family was huddled together in their safe room. For some reason, the terrorists decided that they would be captured instead of killed on the spot. As Shiri’s husband and Kfir and Ariel’s father Yarden was carried off on a motorcycle to captivity in Gaza, the image of family separation evoked memories of our not-too-distant past, this time in an old-new country, from a leftwing Zionist kibbutz, most of whose residents championed peace and coexistence with their Gazan neighbors. Since their cruel abduction, the Bibas family has held a special place in the heart of Israeli society. Their likeness was found graffitied or plastered on the walls of bus stops, alleyways, and throughout cities and towns, and people wore orange to mark the birthdays of the two ginger-headed boys. However, little was known about their whereabouts or their fate. The fact that the two boys were not returned during the November 2023 exchange – in which all children were supposed to have been returned – hinted that they may not be among the living. Despite that, most people were resigned to the fact that they had joined the ranks of October 7 casualties, the news and image of their coffins – along with 84-year-old fellow Nir Oz Kibbutznik Oded Lifshitz – being paraded and exploited for a sadistic Hamas PR spectacle on Thursday, opened up the wounds and caused Israelis and Jews around the world to revisit the pain, trauma, and rage of October 7th all over again. Yesterday was the first time that Hamas returned hostages’ bodies, and we know that they are holding many more. On the day of the attack, Yarden Bibas secured Shiri and their two boys in the shelter room of their home in what turned out to be a failed attempt to distract the terrorists who had infiltrated the kibbutz. More than 500 days later, he—who tried to save his family—is the only one left from the immediate family to bury their children. Their bodies were delivered directly to Abu Kabir, Israel’s forensics headquarters, where it was determined that Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered in captivity, most likely in November of 2023, not killed in an Israeli airstrike, as some have been led to believe by way of Hamas’ propaganda. While the bodies of the two boys and Oded Lifshitz were being identified, we were subject to a cruel twist in the plot when Israel announced that the 4th body returned was, shockingly, not Shiri Bibas.  Baffled and stunned, the questions on everyone’s mind now are: where is Shiri? Who is the body that was given to Israel (as it was determined that it was not a different hostage)? And could Shiri Bibas possibly still be alive? There’s no question that this a severe violation of the agreement, as the IDF statement, later backed by Adam Bohler, President Trump’s envoy to the Israel-Hamas hostage-release talks, “this is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obligated under the agreement to return four deceased hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all our hostages.” Many maintained hope that somehow, by some stretch of our imagination, the Bibas’ would have emerged alive, and the fact that their deaths have now been confirmed – save for Shiri – has elicited a flurry of outpouring of emotions from disappointment to devastation to rage at the blatant reminder that Hamas would murder babies (which we already knew) and then make a public display of two dead children, an 84-year-old peacenik, all while we released murders, with no pomp and circumstance in fulfillment of the agreement. As a result, some have publicly come to the conclusion that Hamas’ cruelty proves the unfeasibility of a Palestinian state and the death of any prospect for peace. Yet others are pushing even more strongly for an expedited release of the remaining hostages and to extend the deal to Phase II despite governmental opposition. While emotions are raw, both on account of the four deceased hostages returning in their tiny yet unbearably heavy coffins yesterday and the six live hostages returning on Shabbat, the rifts in Israeli society continue, yet hope must not be lost. Today, we mourn. Today, our rage burns with contempt for the cruelty and lack of humanity shown to our people. But tomorrow, we will welcome home six human beings – two of which have been in Hamas captivity for nearly a decade. They will need our support, love, and strength. If today is about mourning and anger, tomorrow is about building and resilience. The memory of Ariel and Kfir will live on as a reminder of the evil that we face, and that still exists. Their father, Yarden, will live with the pain of his trauma as the single survivor of his family. May their memory be for a blessing, and may all our captives be redeemed quickly and within our days.