We are publishing the details confirmed by Israel regarding the Bibas family‘s deaths because Yarden Bibas has expressed his wish for the world to know how his beloved wife and children were killed.
According to Israeli officials, four-year-old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir Bibas were strangled to death by their Palestinian captors. Their bodies were then mutilated with rocks to simulate the effects of an airstrike.
These findings were confirmed in a forensic examination conducted in Israel after Hamas returned their remains in yet another macabre spectacle in Khan Yunis, where armed terrorists paraded black coffins on stage before an exhilarated crowd.
While the identities of Ariel, Kfir, and fellow hostage Oded Lifshitz—who was also abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz—were quickly confirmed, forensic tests revealed that the remains Hamas had claimed were Shiri Bibas’ actually belonged to an unidentified Palestinian woman. Shiri’s body was only handed over later, transferred to the Red Cross in Gaza before being returned to Israel on Friday.
Israeli officials have determined that Shiri was murdered in the same brutal manner as her sons in November 2023.
While the world rightfully asks where is Shiri? Don’t fall for Hamas’ distraction. They want you fixated on the missing body instead of their heinous crime: the cold-blooded murder of two innocent boys.
Hamas brutally murdered a baby.
Hamas brutally murdered a toddler. pic.twitter.com/USLbGRFVT2— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
The world witnessed the sheer savagery of Hamas terrorists and the Palestinian civilians who joined them as they stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, 2023. Many of us remember, in excruciating detail, some of the most horrifying moments of that day: the terrorist who called his father to boast that he had killed ten Jews “with his own hands,” using the phone of a woman he had just murdered alongside her husband. The body of Shani Louk, brutalized and lifeless, paraded through Gaza on the back of a pickup truck as a crowd of civilians jostled to further desecrate her remains. The terror on Noa Argamani’s face as she reached for her boyfriend while being sandwiched between two Palestinian men on a motorbike, abducted into Gaza.
Yet even among these horrors, the cold-blooded murder of a mother and her two young children stands apart. It is difficult to grasp such evil, and yet we must. We must say it, again and again: Shiri Bibas and her sons were murdered in Gaza by Palestinian terrorists with their bare hands, their bodies mutilated afterward. They did not die in an airstrike, as Hamas has falsely claimed, and no media organization should be permitted to repeat this lie—parroting the very group responsible for the atrocities of October 7.
Since the release of their bodies, along with six hostages—including two who had been held captive by Hamas for over a decade—we have publicly called out several media organizations that continue to promote the grotesque falsehood that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Among them: MSNBC, TIME, and the Associated Press.
Hamas claiming that the Bibas babies were killed in an airstrike vs Israel providing forensic evidence of them being brutally murdered with bare hands is NOT “competing narratives,” @msnbc.
It’s science vs spin, facts vs fiction. pic.twitter.com/ODQRoqJXOM
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
The tragic confirmation of the Bibas family’s deaths has laid bare—like no other event—just how deeply the Western media has normalized the propaganda of an Islamist terrorist organization that is banned in every single country where these outlets operate.
Over 48 hours after Israeli forensics confirmed that the Bibas babies were murdered by terrorists’ bare bands, why is @TIME @AP parroting Hamas propaganda that they died in an Israeli airstrike?
Your headline centers the Bibas family, yet you can’t even get their story right… pic.twitter.com/HtCggJ7LYF
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 22, 2025
The New York Times, for example, referred to the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz as “prisoners” of Hamas, a grotesque distortion of reality. NPR described Hamas handing over the wrong body of Shiri Bibas—despite their prompt delivery of her remains on Friday, proving they knew exactly where she was—as a simple “mistake.” ABC News and The Telegraph went so far as to cast doubt on whether the wrong remains had even been handed over, framing Israel’s DNA-confirmed identification as a mere “allegation.” Both outlets only corrected their reports after swift intervention from HonestReporting.
The photographer bylined is Saher Alghorra. @nytimes used his pictures as recently as yesterday to cover the return of the murdered Bibas babies and Oded Lifshitz to Israel.
Does @nytimes agree that an elderly peace activist, 10 month old, and four-year-old are “prisoners?” https://t.co/8XG224VEVZ pic.twitter.com/58mFSYWUk5
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
✅ Responding to our complaint, @ABC has replaced the word “alleges.”
The story now correctly reads “the Israeli military said one of the four bodies recently released by Hamas did not include a hostage.” https://t.co/Q61HYmoxMh
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
It’s not a claim or an allegation. It’s a horrific fact.
And, as Hamas demonstrates its inhumanity and depravity, @Telegraph should not be treating Israeli statements as if they might be as disingenuous as those of the terrorist organization. pic.twitter.com/QWk9F1FOO4
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
Meanwhile, The Washington Post obscenely referred to Ariel and Kfir Bibas as “youths”—using language that mirrors Hamas’ own dehumanizing rhetoric. And then there was the BBC’s Jon Donnison, who equated Hamas’ staged propaganda spectacle with Israel, declaring that the “propaganda efforts by both [were] pretty nauseating.”
Ariel Bibas was a 4-year-old toddler and his brother Kfir was a 9-month-old baby when they were kidnapped on October 7, 2023.
They were not “youths.”
What the hell is this, @washingtonpost? pic.twitter.com/fpTw6BB3Jc
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2025
Hamas
– forced hostages to perform on stage, waving and kissing terrorists
– brought 2 other hostages to watch, even though they weren’t released and recorded them begging to come homeIsrael
– recorded freed hostages being reunited with their familiesBBC’s @jondonnisonbbc: pic.twitter.com/Rmk0i8kRUY
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 22, 2025
Let that sink in. A journalist, paid by British taxpayers as per the BBC‘s funding model, compared the parading of the bodies of Israeli children before a crowd in Gaza to something he imagines Israel is doing. It is beyond the pale.
And yet, when HonestReporting’s Editorial Director, Simon Plosker, called Donnison out on X (formerly Twitter), the BBC journalist’s response was frankly embarrassing.
Thanks for your quick reply Simon. It is quite telling that I had to look up your profile to work out which side your criticism was coming from. All the best.
— Jon Donnison (@jondonnisonbbc) February 22, 2025
This is where we are now. In some cases, particularly when media outlets issue rapid corrections, these distortions can be attributed to laziness. But in others—like Donnison’s—it is simply Western media acting as a PR machine for a terrorist organization. And in his case, he’s doing it on the British public’s dime.
The pattern is clear: When Hamas lies, too many journalists rush to print it. When Israel tells the truth, they call it an “allegation.”
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