Jerusalem, 26 February 2025

Today, the world witnessed the funeral of a mother, Shiri, her 4-year old boy, Ariel, and her baby, Kfir (z”l). May they rest in peace.

Reports say that they were brutally murdered a month after their abduction. We cannot imagine what their innocent eyes had witnessed, and the unbearable physical and psychological torture they had endured between their kidnapping on 7 October 2023 and their final moments.

Some days ago, their coffins were paraded on stage by Hamas, among the glee of their own children. The coffins were locked and delivered with no keys and, on opening Shiri’s for identification, the dead body of an unknown Arab woman was found instead. After this sickening behaviour, at last Shiri’s remains were released. Her surviving husband and father of the two boys, their remaining families and friends, are in mourning, together with an entire nation and the Jewish people.

Shiri, Ariel and Kfir live on in our collective memory, and are a testimony to the criminal intent of antisemitism.

Please share their story worldwide. Thank you.

Dr Shimon Samuels
Emeritus Director for International Relations
Simon Wiesenthal Centre

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