Politicians voice pain and rage over news Bibas family no longer alive

Politicians react to the news that the Bibas family are among the dead to be returned tomorrow.

“Such vengeance for blood of babe and maiden hath yet to be wrought by Satan,” tweets Avigdor Liberman, quoting from a poem that Israel’s national poet, Hayim Nahman Bialik, wrote after the 1903 Kishinev pogrom.

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi says the news is received “with endless pain and tears.”

“A whole nation prayed and hoped for the return of our dear Shiri, Kfir, and Ariel alive,” he says. He adds that Hamas “has only one fate — to be wiped off the face of the earth.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid writes on X: “The heart is broken… We hoped so much. Words are at an end.”

National Unity leader Benny Gantz says: “Tomorrow, we will all hold our breath — together. We will mourn –- together. We will stop the quarrels –- nothing will happen, they can wait. And we will embrace the dear families as a strong and united nation. They deserve it, we deserve it.”

Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir, meanwhile, tweets the following, dedicated to Hamas: “Annihilate, demolish, obliterate, wipe out, crush, smash, incinerate, brutalize, punish, devastate, eradicate. Destroy!”