Dear Sir,

It is with a heavy heart that I write of the horrific fate befalling the Bibas family whose safe return so many of us had hoped for. I, unequivocally, condemn this barbaric crime against humanity for its sheer evil!

Unfathomably, and amid Wednesday’s outpouring of grief for his murdered family, Yarden Bibas, who returned home on February 1 after 484 days of captivity, delivered a tearful eulogy for his beloved wife Shiri, 32, and two young sons — four-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old baby Kfir — buried together in a single casket.

Sir, I extend my deepest condolences to the traumatised families, nation and our local Jewish community. Slaughtered for being Jewish, may the memory of this young family be blessed. May all broken hearts be healed amid such great sorrow.”

Recall that Shiri and her red-haired sons became the face of the horrors of October 7 when they were last seen being dragged alive into Gaza. Unimaginably, we now know that while Hamas kept Yarden alive under wretched conditions, they brutally murdered Shiri and her young sons shortly after being abducted. Moreover, these butchers of the innocents held their bodies for freeing more of their convicted murderers from Israeli prisons — just like the architect of the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar, was in the 2011 Shalit deal.

For a sense of historical perspective, readers should note that the Palestinian Arabs’ pogrom of October 7 was by far the worst mass tragedy for Jews since the Holocaust. And like the Nazis’ genocide wiping out untold generations of European Jewish families, the Bibases’ deaths also meant that another three generations of Jewish families were unmercifully wiped out. Heinously, Shiri’s parents were among the 1,200 people massacred after which 251 hostages were cruelly abducted, sparking the brutal war in Gaza.

Most strikingly, there is a stark contrast between the Nazi and Palestinian genocides. Unlike the Holocaust when non-Jews risked their lives to rescue Europe’s targeted Jews — fittingly known as the “Righteous among the Nations”, there were none in Gaza!

How is it that not a single Palestinian Arab saved, nor dared to help a single hostage while they were knowingly held in civilian homes and Gaza’s public hospitals?

Sir, revisiting the Palestinian Arabs’ vicious assault against defenceless women, children, babies and the aged on of October 7, and their abominable treatment of the hostages — many starved while held underground for months in Gaza’s terror tunnels without sunlight or proper medical care — vast sectors of the international community today stand condemned for remaining silent on the slaughter of the innocents.

It was a disturbing silence reflecting their wilful blindness over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Included are the Palestinian Arabs’ false narrative and Islamist-driven death cult mentality perverting all sectors of their medieval society.

TONY REID

Pembroke