Mourners holding flags and orange balloons lined highways in Israel on Wednesday as the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, who died while held captive in Gaza, were taken for burial.
Signs reading “forgive us” were held aloft as the procession passed.
The Bibas family’s fate has become a symbol of the grief felt in Israel following the Hamas attack on October 7 2023.
Video of a terrified Shiri Bibas clutching her two redheaded sons, 9-month-old Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel, as they were taken to Gaza is etched in the country’s memory.
Israeli authorities have said forensic evidence indicates the boys were killed by their captors in November, while Hamas claims the family died in an Israeli airstrike.
The return of their bodies this month as part of a ceasefire deal brought further agony when one was initially misidentified. Shiri’s body was returned the following night.
Yarden Bibas, the children’s father and Shiri’s husband, was abducted separately and freed in a different handover last month.
His wife and their two children were buried in a private ceremony near Kibbutz Nir Oz, close to Gaza, where they lived.
They were buried next to Shiri’s parents, who also died in the October 7 attack.
Mourners sobbed and embraced as the caskets travelled the 60-mile route from central Israel to the cemetery.
Hundreds of motorcycles, each with an Israeli flag and orange ribbons, rode solemnly behind the convoy.
In the city of Tel Aviv, thousands gathered to watch a broadcast of the eulogies, many dressed in orange.
Kfir was the youngest of about 30 children taken hostage. The infant, with red hair and a toothless smile, quickly became well-known across Israel. His ordeal was raised by Israeli leaders on podiums around the world.
The extended Bibas family has been active at protests, branding the color orange as the symbol of their fight for the “ginger babies”. They marked Kfir’s first birthday with a release of orange balloons and lobbied world leaders for support.
Family photos aired on TV and posted on social media created a national bond with the two boys and made them familiar faces.
Israelis learned of Ariel Bibas’ love for Batman. Photos from a happier time showed the entire family dressed up as the character.
On Wednesday, many people dressed up in Batman costumes and saluted as the caskets passed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the delayed release of Shiri’s remains a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement.
“We waited for certainty, but it brings no comfort – only profound grief,” Ofri Bibas Levy, the boys’ aunt, said when the boys’ remains were identified.
During the release of the bodies in Gaza, Hamas militants displayed coffins on a stage labeled with Shiri’s name and those of her two boys as upbeat music blared. Behind them hung a panel where their pictures hovered beneath a cartoon of a vampiric-looking Netanyahu.
Some 1,200 people in Israel were killed in the October 7 attack that triggered the war in Gaza and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
