We need to talk about what we witnessed in Gaza today. The sick ceremonial handover of the bodies of slain Israelis was a new low, even for Hamas. This was the theatre of death, a public spectacle of Jewish agony for the delectation of voyeuristic anti-Semites. If the world fails to speak out against this racist, morbid stunt, then we are in even bigger moral trouble than I thought.
The bodies of four hostages were returned. Oded Lifschitz, an 84-year-old peace activist, and the three late members of the Bibas family. Mum Shiri and her two tiny sons: Ariel, who was four when he was kidnapped, and Kfir, who was just nine months old. The images of the Bibas’s being dragged from their home by an Islamist mob on 7 October 2023, a terror-stricken Shiri clutching Ariel and Kfir to her chest, are among the grimmest we have seen in the 21st century so far.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate, free for a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.
UNLOCK ACCESS Try a month freeAlready a subscriber? Log in