Yarden Bibas speaks at the funeral of his wife and sons, murdered in captivity in Gaza and returned to Israel after 16 months, Feb. 26, 2025. (Screenshot)

(JTA) — Israel was awash in orange on Wednesday as the Bibas family held a private funeral for Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, the mother and young sons murdered in captivity in Gaza.

Israelis wearing orange lined a nearly 40-mile route that a funeral procession took on the way to the cemetery in southern Israel, near Nir Oz, the kibbutz from which the family was abducted when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. Their bodies were released from Gaza last week following a grisly ceremony by the terror group.

Mothers carried orange balloons during a demonstration in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square. Both Ben-Gurion Airport and the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, shone in the color on Tuesday night, as the country prepared for yet another wrenching moment in an unrelenting national trauma.

And Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and Ariel and Kfir’s father who himself was freed from Gaza earlier this month, wore an orange kippah as he delivered a tearful eulogy that livestreamed directly to a grieving nation.

“Mi amor,” he began as he addressed his wife in the Spanish of their families’ ancestral home in Argentina. He apologized for not being able to protect their family and recalled the last decision they made together, choosing from their safe room to fight the terrorists who had attacked them rather than surrender — a choice he said would not make again.

“Shiri, everyone knows and loves us — you can’t imagine how surreal all this madness is,” he said, referring to the way that the family has become a national symbol. “Shiri, people tell me they’ll always be by my side, but they’re not you. So please stay close to me.” He added, “Protect me from myself. Guard me so I don’t sink into darkness.”

To his sons, whose red hair inspired the orange displays, Yarden Bibas also apologized. He also recalled the laughter they shared and imagined them playing together in the afterlife.

“I love you ‘the most in the world, always in the world,’ just as you used to tell us,” he told Ariel, who was 4 on Oct. 7. He repeated the phrase when addressing Kfir, 9 months old at the time, before concluding, “I have so many more things to tell you all, but I’ll save them for when we’re alone.”

Other members of the family spoke as well but no representative of the Israeli government was present, in accordance with the family’s wishes. On Tuesday night, the eve of the funeral, the Bibas family released a statement saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had shared additional details about what forensic analysis had shown about Shiri, Ariel and Kfir’s bodies in contravention of the family’s preferences.

The funeral followed a ceremony Tuesday for Oded Lifshitz, who was also abducted from Nir Oz on Oct. 7 and was murdered in captivity at age 83. His wife Yocheved, released in October 2023, eulogized him, saying that the family had been attacked by those whom they sought to help as peace activists. Israeli President Isaac Herzog also spoke at Lifshitz’s funeral, apologizing for the state’s failure on Oct. 7.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount