At Funeral for Shiri Bibas and Children, an Israeli Outpouring of Grief

The people of Israel embraced them on their final journey, turning out in multitudes along the funeral route for a family that had become emblematic of the country’s trauma after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, taken to Gaza, and killed in captivity, according to the Israeli authorities. On Wednesday, amid a national outpouring of solidarity and grief, they were buried under a blue sky, not far from the border community where they had lived and from which they were seized.

Through 16 months of fear and uncertainty over their fates, the Bibases had become a symbol for many Israelis, both of the tragedy that befell their country that October day, when about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted to Gaza, but also of a widespread sense of abandonment. The military had failed to come to their rescue and the government failed to bring them, and many other hostages, home in time.

Ms. Bibas was 32 when she was abducted. Ariel was 4, and Kfir, the youngest hostage, was not even nine months old. Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the father of the two redheaded boys, was abducted separately during the attack, which set off Israel’s 15-month war in Gaza that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and left much of the enclave in ruins.

Mr. Bibas was returned to Israel alive early this month as part of a cease-fire deal for Gaza. The remains of Ms. Bibas and the children were returned to Israel last week. After forensic testing, Israel’s chief pathologist dismissed Hamas’s claims that they had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, though no evidence has been made public, in line with the family’s request for privacy.

Eulogizing his family, Mr. Bibas apologized for not managing to protect them. “Ariel, I hope you’re not angry with me for failing to protect you properly and for not being there for you,” he said, adding, “Kfir, I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”

“Shiri, everyone knows and love us — you can’t imagine how surreal all this madness is,” he said. He added, “This is the closest I’ve been to you since Oct. 7, and I can’t kiss or hug you.”

Ofri Bibas, Yarden Bibas’s sister, touched on the popular anger and demand for the government to allow an independent investigation into the Oct. 7 failures and accept responsibility.

“There is no meaning to forgiveness before the failures are investigated and all officials take responsibility,” she said in her eulogy. “Our disaster as a nation and as a family should not have happened and must never happen again.”

Government officials were asked to stay away from the private burial. A few days ago, Ofri Bibas criticized the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for not apologizing to the family.

In another eulogy by the graveside, Dana Silberman Sitton, Shiri’s sister, said, “I want to ask your forgiveness on behalf of our leadership and military who weren’t there for you that day, and who took so long to bring you back to your homeland.”

Crowds also gathered at a central plaza in Tel Aviv now known as Hostage Square to watch a livestream of the eulogies on a large screen. Some people were wrapped in Israeli flags. Some wore orange to remember the redheaded children. Others held orange balloons aloft then released them into the sky.

Maia Szryftman, 53, had come from Nahariya, on Israel’s northern border, to express support for the family and be part of the public outpouring. “The heart aches for the two children, for the whole family,” she said.

Yael Koren, 44, said she had come to the square “to be human.”

“I believe that being together makes us stronger,” she said.

She showed an image on her cellphone of a picture that her son, nearly 7, had drawn of a boy who had been kidnapped. She said her children’s school had sent memos home about how to answer their questions about the Bibas children.

“But you can’t explain it,” she said.