‘The Bibas family is a symbol for every good human being’ - Elie Wiesel’s student responds to sickening Hamas handover of Jewish bodies

“Devastated. Devastated and unable to breathe.”

This is the way Dr. Elana Heideman described the feeling in Israel on Thursday, as Hamas terrorists handed over the bodies of four innocent civilians, two of whom were little children. [Forensic reports late Thursday after this interview was recorded revealed the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas.]

Shiri Bibas was 32 when she was kidnapped by Gazan gunmen during the pogrom of October 7, 2023. Her son, Ariel, was 4 years-old, and baby Kfir was just 9 months old. 

After a forensic examination on Thursday, it was announced that Oded Lifshitz - whose wife Yocheved was released after 17 terrible days in captivity - was murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the age of 83. It was also announced that Ariel and Kfir were brutally murdered in November 2023. Kfir was 10 months old. All four were forcibly taken from their homes in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Heideman, a Holocaust educator, was mentored by Professor Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor. In an interview with Christian journalist Paul Calvert, she put into words the corporate grief of the nation of Israel. She also explained more about how the Bibas family were kidnapped, how the bodies were handed over, the lies surrounding their deaths, and how they can become a symbol for good in the world.

“It is a very astounding situation to find ourselves in, after 503 days of hope, to discover that this symbolic family, the Bibas mother and children, have been murdered while in captivity,” she said. “Everyone has seen their faces and knows their stories.”

Heideman remarked that all of Israel and many supporters in the world watched as the father, Yarden Bibas, was himself released from a horribly long time in captivity, just 20 days prior to the bodies of his beloved wife and children, still unsure of their fate.

And many people, Heideman said, “wish that they would open the coffins and declare to the world, ‘No, these are three other people. These are not the Bibases; they’re still alive!’ - people like myself,” she said.

Even on the morning of the handover, Heideman said she wondered, “Isn’t that possible? Couldn’t it be God? Give us a miracle?” But she said she had to wake up and know that the nightmare was really happening, for the sake of her children. She wanted to prepare them for what would surely be discussed at school that day.

“How are we feeling is an upheaval and unable to maintain any sort of balance,” she said. “But we must, because we know that we live for Yarden and for him to be strengthened, and for all of the families and all of the returned hostages, to be able to live lives and appreciate that they have the State of Israel to take care of them and the people of Israel to care for them.”

“Without that, as we see hate against Jews rising around the world, we have almost nothing.”

Because of the need now for the nation to rally around Yarden, Heideman said she believes there will be “a big change in Israel… in terms of whose voices we’re going to hear affecting policy and civic society.”

“There is a major call right now for unity,” she explained. “Some of the disunity that we are experiencing in Israel is actually being fuelled and fed by funds and organizations outside of Israel. And this is one of the most dangerous elements that we have to fight…

“Only in unity will we be able to outlast this.”

Heideman said that “even the released hostages have shared that their captors would always say that when Israel is united, that is when they are afraid, and that is when Israel is strongest.”

Even after the 500-day question of whether Shiri and the children were alive has been resolved, Heideman is “not sure there will ever fully be closure” after October 7, 2023. 

“Do we want closure, or do we need to create the outrage more and more and more in order to resist what they have legitimized as ‘resistance murder’?” she asked rhetorically. 

“That’s what they are saying is acceptable in our world, unless we create greater outrage and silence their voice by reaching out and getting involved in every possible avenue, by taking time out of somebody’s day of their general life and saying, ‘I can’t be silent here.’ 

“Only then can we reach closure - if we prevent the next October 7,” she added.

Heideman said that she believes “every Israeli and any friend of Israel in the world is confused because we don’t understand how the world has allowed this to happen.”

She explained that the world could certainly have done more to save the mother and infants, as well as the elderly people, such as Lifshitz, by putting pressure on the right people.

“I don’t believe anyone has put any pressure on the bodies that are actually in control,” she said. “All of the pressure is on Bibi (Netanyahu)…” 

Heideman explained that “the Bibi haters of the world” have pursued a campaign about “his politicking,” when in fact, she said that some of the members of the negotiating team were “actually more interested in concessions,” meaning that Hamas heard “again and again, ‘We’ll give you anything at any price.’”

“So now we’ve released just for these bodies today, several hundred terrorists who have murdered several hundreds amongst them,” she continued. “This is a terrible cycle, and we have to put closure to the cycle as well.”

Heideman believes the world’s involvement in the conflict can be improved by “changing the dynamics of the United Nations and other international bodies.” 

The Red Cross, who have now made what feels like their first intervention since October 7 – requesting that Hamas not desecrate the bodies of the dead hostages – she says “should be cut down to their knees and all funding stopped,” in the same way as funding to UNRWA and other organizations, USAID included, “which have been funneling money into terror.”

This funding is the only reason, she said, that 50,000 Gazan civilians are now in “pristine new uniforms with massive stages and printing and everything on show, and well fed, and every day videos come out about their good food in Gaza.”

“They are presenting a picture of power. We have to take that power away by demonstrating to the world that this is a farce – call it out. My prayer is that more people feel confident to do so.”

Calvert referred to the fact that certain hostages have become the ‘face’ of the plight of the 251 people who were taken so brutally that dark day. One was the bright and sociable Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was so tragically shot dead, along with five other hostages, as Israeli soldiers were close to finding them. 

The three beautiful redheads have also been “important to humanizing the story of what Israelis are experiencing all of this time,” Heideman agreed, since October 7, 2023, when “Shiri and her babies were taken away…

…but not by Hamas,” she said it is important to emphasize.

“They were kidnapped by local Gazan civilians who found joy in taking part in this onslaught against Jews. Like the one individual who calls his father… [and] says, ‘I am calling you from the phone of a Jew. I killed ten Jews!’ That thirst for blood and that excitement was not just a Hamas issue.”

As a Holocaust educator, Heideman said there are several things the world must understand at this point:

“Today we have to see that all of Gazan society has been educated to believe that Hamas ideology is an acceptable ideology. It is not,” she said. 

“We must stop anyone in the world from believing that there is logic behind that argument. 

“We also need to start realizing that anyone who does try to legitimize that argument is themselves a supporter of terror and should be accountable for that.” 

The image of the fiery redheads, their names meaning ‘lion’ and ‘lion cub,’ and their fiercely protective, lioness mother, remain “a symbol, to help drive humanity forward,” Heideman said. 

“There’s a beautiful graphic that’s circulating that says, ‘May their memory or may their spirit, may their strength be a revolution.’ 

“And that’s what we need - for there to be a revolution in the name of the Bibas children. They call the Jews ‘baby killers.’ They’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Now we see and we show: ‘Who are the baby killers? They stole two children in their bed…’”

Speaking of Oded Lifshitz, Heideman said that it is “important to recognize this was a very far left activist, someone who did not love the government and he did not love elements of the state…

“But he was very, very much a long-time activist and one of the founders of Nir Oz. So he’s a symbol in a different way, for a different element of society.” 

Heideman said that his wife, Yocheved, who was freed from captivity after 17 days, has spoken about the fact that her husband was a driver for many years for the project ‘The Road to Recovery,’ driving Gazan children who received medical care in Israel. 

“We have been feeding this idea that there is a potential for peace with these people,” Heideman explained, “and they have been educated that the only reason that Israel exists is for them to use us, manipulate us, and then kill us.”

Heideman described how the bodies were handed over to the Red Cross:

“It has to be emphasized that they delivered coffins that were locked with keys that did not unlock them,” she said. “Then they had to be checked by a bomb squad to be sure that there were no hidden explosives inside.”

She explained that this is unfortunately not a new procedure for Israel: “There were explosives found inside of bodies on October 7,” she said, “because they were anticipating that someone would come to save them and they would be able to kill them, too.”

After the checks, there was a very small ceremony with the reciting of the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and then they were handed to the IDF, “our beloved defense forces. Can you imagine, just what we have to go through?” she asked, not to mention the difficulty of identification after over 500 days, and one a baby without teeth, often used to ID remains.

Heideman stressed that the “Hamas propaganda machine is trying to brainwash people to believing that Israel is to blame,” even as the terrorist group falsely claimed in November 2023 that Israel’s air force bombing caused their deaths. 

As a Holocaust educator, she also referred to the grotesque propaganda images on the stage during the release of the bodies, including “a horrific picture of our Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, as the devil with fangs and blood coming out of his mouth.”

“And this is supposed to convince the world, all of those college students and all of the advocates and UN officers and all of the politicians, all the people who are defending Hamas, this is what they stand up for, delivering four coffins?” she asked rhetorically.

Heideman said that her prayer is that Israel’s allies will “do more and immediately get back in one call from around the world, a demand for all hostages to be released at once,” as US President Trump tried to insist upon, prior to last Saturday’s release of three Israeli men.

“There are going to be,” she explained, “by the end of this phase, 63 hostages remaining in captivity. We need a global call to release them at once, to demand of the governments, to demand of terror-funding Qatar, to demand of everyone, to create the demand on the Pope, who sat with a keffiyeh-wrapped Jesus…

“We have to demand greater accountability, otherwise the holocaust of our generation will continue to happen. We are only in an early phase of the attempted genocide, and only the involvement of common people of the world in creating greater change is going to stop it.”

Heideman said that it is understandable that people are afraid to speak out, as before in history. However, she said that there are many things people can do without exposing themselves.

“Every time I see a child with red hair, you can’t help but have your breath stopped and that’s going to stay with us. We’re going to remember them, but how do we turn their memory into revolution? That’s going to require a more involved world.

“My prayer is that people wake up.”

Dr. Elana Heideman serves as the executive director of the Israel Forever Foundation, helping people to understand Israel as a nation and a people, its history and its destiny beyond the current conflict.

Click below to listen to the full interview.