Hamas barbarity has no limits

There was a renewed display of grotesque inhumanity on Saturday when the barbaric Hamas terrorists released another three of their hostages.

Among the three forced by gun-toting, uniformed Hamas thugs to stand on a stage in Khan Younis, in the heart of Gaza, giving forced smiles after 484 horrifying days in captivity, was 35-year-old Yarden Bibas who, with wife Shiri, 34, and their two small sons, Ariel and Kfir, was abducted during the terrorists’ mass slaughter of 1200 Jews on October 7, 2023.

Kfir was a 10-month-old in his mother’s arms at the time; Ariel was four.

Rightly, the fate of the young Bibas family, taken to be used as hostages and human shields, has for 15 months stirred consciences across the world.

Yarden Bibas is believed to have spent much of his long incarceration locked in a cage deep in a Hamas tunnel, knowing nothing of what had become of his wife and sons.

They were, however, on a list of hostages due for release under terms of the current ceasefire. But their fate remains unknown.

A Hamas claim in November 2023 that Shiri and her boys were killed in an Israeli air strike remains unconfirmed and has been denounced by the Israel Defence Forces as cruel propaganda.

None of this merciless treatment of Yarden and his family detracts from the rightfully joyous scenes as the other two hostages were reunited with their families on Saturday: Keith Siegel, meeting wife Aviva, herself a former hostage, and Ofer Calderon embracing his four ecstatic children.

Twelve more living hostages are expected to be freed in the coming weeks of phase one of the hostage deal.

But the cruel treatment meted out to Yarden Bibas and his young family, and the inhumanity on display even as he was freed, should leave no doubt anywhere about what Hamas, despite being degraded, remains capable of.

The terrorist leaders have said they remain committed to a repeat of October 7.

The strutting thugs who handed over Yarden Bibas in the heart of Gaza are clear evidence of the challenge that remains for Israel.

The terrorists’ unspeakably cruel treatment of the Bibas family, as with their treatment of all the hostages, amplifies the need for the civilised world to be unequivocal in supporting Israel’s twin goals of bringing home all the hostages and ensuring Hamas is never able to commit another October 7 atrocity.

Hamas’s unrelenting barbarity and inhumanity demand no less than that it be destroyed and never again allowed to control Gaza.

Achieving that goal must be at the top of the agenda when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Donald Trump at the White House this week.