Hundreds mourn Bibas family in ‘funeral’ outside Parliament

Hours after coffins containing the bodies of Oded Lifshitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir, were returned to Israel, hundreds of British Jews and allies walked through central London carrying fake symbolic coffins.

The procession, organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum UK and Stop the Hate UK, gathered in Parliament Square and ended in a memorial service outside 10 Downing Street that included speeches, mourning prayers, and song.

Addressing the crowd, president of the Board of Deputies Phil Rosenberg said the “grotesque spectacle” of the handover between Hamas and the Red Cross earlier in the day was a reminder of “who Hamas are”

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“They are the purveyors of a death cult,” he said, “that is a curse to the region, to Israelis and to the Palestinians alike.”

Rosenberg called Lifschitz, who was a peace advocate, as “a man who was emblematic of the hope of peace”, and the Bibas children as “red-haired angels whose images have become intertwined with our souls.

“The world looked at the Bibas children and saw innocence, Hamas looked at them and saw bargaining chips,” Rosenberg said. “A world where a baby, a toddler, a mother, and a grandfather held hostage defies human understanding.”

Condemning the inaction of international bodies, Rosenberg continued: “We ask today, where is the world? Where are the so-called human rights organisations? Do they not know that human rights are universal? Or to them, do Jews just not count?”

“We are united in our grief. We stand with the Bibas family and the Lifshitz family, whom we have come to know and love as if they were our own families.”

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He said the Jewish community is “absolutely determined” to continue to campaign until every hostage is returned, because “we refuse to let Hamas define our future, and we refuse to let our people be forgotten.”

Before the procession began, several men stood in silence in Parliament Square, their hands bound and vision blocked with yellow ribbons, symbolising the “silence of the public and international organisations which enable the killing of hostages,” organisers said.

Standing in the rain outside 10 Downing Street, the crowd listened in silence as prayers of remembrance were said including Kaddish.

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A one-minute silence was held, followed by the singing of Israeli and British national anthems, the Hatikvah and God Save the King.

Reverend Hayley Ace, of Christian Action Against Antisemitism, told attendees that “every decent, moral person, whether they are Christian, Atheist, or Hindu, stands with you right now. You do not stand alone. You do not walk this road alone.”

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The event ended with the thanking of the CST and the police, who surrounded the gathering.

One person was arrested by police after shouting “Free Palestine” in front of mourners.

On Thursday morning in Khan Younis, Hamas unveiled the four coffins from behind a curtain on a stage which it said contained the bodies of the Israeli hostages. The coffins were transferred from Gaza to Israel via the Red Cross.

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Once in Israel, the coffins were draped in Israeli flags and a small ceremony took place led by the IDF chief rabbi, as hundreds of Israeli civilians and soldiers lined the roads to pay their respect.

The bodies are being taken to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine to undergo an identification procedure.

The United Nations said the parading of the coffins containing hostages’ bodies through Gaza violated international law, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The heart of the entire nation is torn.”

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said it was “pure evil to take a mother and her young children and an elderly man hostage.”
He added, “This is what Israel is up against. Today, all decent people around the world mourn with Israel, Kibbutz Nir Oz, and the Bibas and Lifshitz family.”

Adam Rose and Adam Wagner, lawyers to the British hostage families, posted to X to say the four returned bodies “represent four whole worlds, and four total failures – as we said when we took the British hostage families to meet with prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street: this is what failure looks like.”