Four more hostages were released by hamas yesterday. All of them dead.
The bodies (I don’t even want to think about their condition) included 32 year old Shiri Bibas, her 4 year old son Ariel and her 9 month old son Kfir, all taken from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, and 83 year old Oded Lifshitz from the same Kibbutz.
Before their “release” (if you can call the return of dead bodies a “release”) what’s left of hamas had a celebration of sorts where they were turned over to the Red Cross for transportation across the border. The death of Jews, even a young mother, two infants and an elderly man (who, ironically, was a proponent of benign treatment for Palestinian Arabs) is a celebratory event for these people.
For whatever it is worth – i.e. nothing – hamas claims it did not kill the Bibas family and Mr. Lifshitz. It claims Israel killed them with an air attack. No evidence, of course, just hamas’ sayso. If you believe this, stop reading because you are beyond hope.
hamas is a murderous, terrorist, subhuman entity that cannot – CANNOT – be left in charge of Gaza or anywhere else. An agreement/deal that leaves hamas in control of so much as one acre of land in Gaza or anywhere else is unacceptable.
The only hope for hamas and its supporters (many of whom are, themselves, victims because they have been taught from the time they are educable that Israel must be annihilated and all Jews must be killed, so they know nothing else) is that someday, some of them might realize what monsters they have been made into and will somehow change their ways.
Truth be told, though? Other than maybe a few remarkable exceptions, I have no expectation that will ever happen.
