The Most Difficult Day

Yael Eckstein  |  February 27, 2025

Last Thursday was the most difficult day for Israelis since the brutal terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.

It was the day on which we in Israel awaited the return by Hamas terrorists of the murdered bodies of three members of the Bibas family – Shiri Bibas and her beautiful red-haired sons Ariel and Kfir, kidnapped by raging Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Shiri was 32, Ariel was 4, and Kfir was a tender 9 months. Shiri’s husband Yarden was also kidnapped, and only recently released.

How can I say that this was Israel’s most difficult day since October 7? Let me explain.

First of all, it was the culmination of the pain of waiting – waiting for more than a year to catch any shred of information on the fate of this beautiful, innocent family, imprisoned in unspeakable conditions in the hellhole of Gaza tunnels. Each one of us became victims of Hamas’ inexpressible cruelty, their psychological warfare, leaving us day after day not knowing the state of this family.

But it goes beyond that. The Bibas family – maybe in part because of that gorgeous red hair of the children – became a symbol in Israel, a symbol of innocence confronting evil, of life confronting death, of civilization confronting mindless violence and destruction. Even of the will to live while being threatened with massive destruction.

For fifteen months we held out hope. For fifteen months we pictured in our minds the return of the Bibas family – alive but shattered. We would embrace them. We would tell them, over and over again, “You are not alone. We will help you recover. We will help you come back to yourselves. We will nurture you in every way that we can. We will do everything we can to make you whole again.” Their return would have renewed our faith, with its answer to our prayers, and provided some optimism for the future.

But last week, that dream evaporated. That bubble burst. That hope vanished. We cannot speak to Shiri, or to Ariel, or to Kfir. We cannot hug them, or make our promises to them. Because they are dead, senselessly murdered by Hamas in an act of the purest evil imaginable – killing a mother and her two babies.

Really, our bubble had already burst on October 7, 2023. Up until then we thought: perhaps there are some good, innocent people in Gaza. Perhaps we should be reaching out to them for peace – as did several Israeli citizens who were also killed or kidnapped on October 7. When we saw what happened onthat day, and during the days, weeks, and months that followed, was frightening and depressing. We saw Gazans celebrating the October 7 attacks, and even joining “official” Hamas terrorists in the horrific acts of evil. Down deep, we already knew that hope for peace was futile, and even foolish. We knew that we were looking evil in the eye. We knew that all people everywhere who stand with freedom and cherish life could never in any way rationalize what happened on October 7, or what happened to the beautiful Bibas family – and the other hostages – since then.

In order to grasp why that day last week was so impossibly hard for all Israelis, it’s important to understand certain aspects of Israeli society, and how different it is from many other societies in the world.

When I grew up in the United States, I was told, “Don’t talk to strangers” – probably good advice. But here in Israel, I tell my kids, “If you ever need anything and I’m not around, ask the stranger near you.” When my kids were little and would fall in the park, five moms would run over to them even before I got there. During a terror attack, strangers run TOWARDS the attack as if every victim was their loved one. On October 7, hundreds of citizens rushed to southern Israel to fight the terrorists and rescue victims, taking them to safety – not in emergency vehicles, but in their very own cars.

Why are we like this? It’s very simple, but amazingly profound: We cherish life. For us, every life is precious, and every life is personal.

So, as we mourn the deaths of the beautiful Bibas mother and children, we know that we have truly looked evil in the eye. The question is, now, what do we do about it? Well, we know that we cannot continue this way, with Hamas on our doorstep.

But perhaps even more deeply, we know that we must continue to cherish life, to utterly reject this cult of death, to do more good, help more people in need. We also know that we must warn the world – and warn it sternly – that you, too, must reject this evil, or you are next. The terrorists have told us this explicitly: first the Saturday people – the Jews – they say, and then the Sunday people – the Christians. As a horrific example, just a few days ago, 70 Christians were gruesomely murdered in a church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The perpetrators belong to an offshoot of ISIS, a group with a similar ideology to that of Hamas.

We do not want to have any more days like last week, waiting for blameless people to be brought home dead, victims of a brand of terrorism not seen since the Holocaust. I know that there is no one in the civilized world who wants that either.

To prevent that from happening, we must all act against these forces, and act quickly and forcefully against evil. And we must pray to God and ask Him for His help in this huge effort. We rely on the profound words of the Psalmist: “Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” So may it be.

With blessings from the Holy Land,

Yael Eckstein