French MEP barred from Israel says Bibas family wasn’t murdered, justifies Hamas attack

A French member of the European Parliament whose entry into Israel was denied in recent days has courted outrage in France by arguing that the Bibas family were not murdered by their captors and justifying Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

Israeli forensic officials have said Shiri Bibas and her two young children were brutally murdered by their captors in November 2023.

According to Le Journal du Dimanche and other media outlets, Rima Hassan told Sud Radio today, when asked if Shiri Bibas and her children were murdered, “No.”

“The Bibas family itself asked the Israeli authorities to stop commenting on the circumstances of the death of their loved ones,” she said, arguing they have not received “official and clear information on the reports communicated by the Israeli army.”

This is a twisting of the Bibas family’s comments. The family has acknowledged that the autopsy shows that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered, and has asked that no more details be given to the media, for privacy reasons. In expressing anger that more explicit details of the deaths have leaked, they have noted that they have not yet been given the full details themselves. At no point have they questioned forensic experts’ assertion that the three were murdered by their guards.

While Hassan acknowledged that the Bibas children “would not have died if they had not been kidnapped,” she said that “the 18,000 Palestinian children would not have died if we did not have a regime of occupation and colonization imposed by Israel.

“Would there have been Hamas, and the attacks of October 7, if there was no illegal occupation and an illegal blockade imposed for decades?” she asked.

She argued that Hamas had engaged in “legitimate action.”

Cannes Mayor David Lisnard says he is reporting Hassan to France’s Public Prosecutor’s Office.

“Rima Hassan no longer even bothers to play with the law to act as Hamas’s spokesperson. Today she literally legitimizes Hamas’s actions,” he says.

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi says the European MP “should be prosecuted for condoning terrorism.”