At time of writing, the Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, and their mother, Shiri, have been laid to rest in Israel.
I want to speak about this moment, specifically to the Catholic community in my home country of Australia. It is difficult to find the words.
Let me start by saying that the Catholic Church, according to its own current teachings, affirms a profound spiritual connection with the Jewish people. Catholics readily speak of their ‘Jewish brothers and sisters’. Yet, when the unspeakable events of the October 7 massacre occurred, many Catholics found themselves paralysed in the face of the trauma engulfing their Jewish sisters and brothers. There was no united, robust public outcry from the Catholic Church. The hostages received little or no focused attention in Australian Catholic social justice circles.
I have written about these matters elsewhere. Suffice it to say here that such paralysis must not reign this time. Not for our two little brothers, Kfir and Ariel. Not for our sister, Shiri.
Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas were not killed as tragic, unintended casualties of war. As the now-notorious Hamas video footage shows, their captors made a conscious choice to drag these three helpless people back to Gaza as hostages. According to the forensic evidence now shared by Israel with other governments, Hamas made a choice also to brutally murder the Bibas children and mother while in captivity, following which Hamas chose to taunt hostage Yarden Bibas with the prospect of being reunited with his wife and children.
As I write, the Jewish community is experiencing deep, raw, visceral pain. The re-opened wound is not only the fact of what happened to the Bibas children and their mother before and at the time of their deaths. It is also felt through the obscene depths of depravity to which their lifeless bodies have been subjected in the public spectacle of Hamas’ grotesque theatrics: a ‘hostage handover ceremony’.
What kind of so-called ‘resistance’ fighters weaponize a murdered baby and four-year-old to inflict further pain on the family and nation to whom those children belong? What form of political strategy takes satisfaction in swapping the bodily remains of two dead women, further terrorising an already bereft husband? What sort of government parades the caskets of slaughtered children before an excited crowd, cameras everywhere, with upbeat music and families with young children as spectators? What damaging effect do such macabre antics have on their own Palestinian people? And on the repute of the Palestinian flag fluttering over the arena? How is it that militants in a flattened Gaza can produce a professionally printed stage backdrop using the image of the Bibas family in a shameful propaganda exercise? And, just as chilling, what kind of ‘social justice’ zealots in western countries would support an entity like Hamas or find excuses for its violent ideology?
In the same demeaning ‘handover’ ceremony to which the Bibas family was subjected, Hamas included a fourth murdered soul – an elderly Israeli peace activist named Oded Lifshitz. Even United Nations officials objected.
It would be wrong for the world, including churches, to turn a blind eye to this moment when barbarism proudly flaunted its evil handiwork. So, what might be the Catholic community’s response? I will keep my expectations modest and local. Let me make the task as simple and as achievable as possible. Here is one action by which Catholics in Australia can express solidarity with their Jewish brothers and sisters in these days of extreme grief. Wrap your love and prayers around the Bibas family by intentionally bringing into your day something of the colour orange. An orange flower. An orange fruit. An orange candle. An orange T-shirt or scarf or tie. A balloon. Whatever. Let it be orange – the colour that came to symbolise the Bibas children, both being redheads, as their families, over 16 months, hoped and prayed and advocated for their release.
Let the colour orange signify among Catholics prayerful remembrance of these two small Jewish children, their mother and their surviving father. Let it stand for humanity, in the face of inhumanity. It’s the tiniest gesture. Ridiculously understated. It will change nothing for the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza. It won’t usher in world peace. And it can’t bring back the Bibas children, nor any of the thousands of Palestinian children under Hamas’ rule who have perished in the war in Gaza.
Yet perhaps it will create that tiny spark of movement, of momentum, that can disrupt paralysis and break through silence. It’s better than staying stuck. It’s something, not nothing.
Bring orange into your day, into your Lenten practice, and let it be a visual symbol that the Catholic community does care, grieve, and pray for Kfir, Ariel and Shiri, their little Jewish brothers, their Jewish sister.
May they rest in peace.
Teresa Pirola, ThD, is a Sydney-based freelance writer and faith educator, and author of “October 7: A Response to the 2023 October 7 Massacre in Israel and Surging Antisemitism in Australia”.
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