‘Hostages should have come first’
A leading Israeli advocate for the hostages has sharply criticised the Israeli government's handling of the heartbreaking issue.
Israeli Noam Tibon has expressed anger to an Australian audience about Israel rejecting a Hamas offer of a hostages-for-prisoners swap before the IDF entered Gaza in October 2023 that could have spared the Bibas children and others.
The retired IDF major-general and his wife Gali’s daring rescue of wounded Israelis on October 7 that year, with Noam entering the besieged kibbutz Nahal Oz and saving people, among them his son Amir, daughter-in-law Miri and their two infant children, made world headlines.
At a private event in Melbourne for the UIA Progressive Appeal, Major-General Tibon, who with Gali is a leading advocate for the hostages, said Israel had rejected a Hamas offer on October 10, 2023, through Qatar, to exchange female and child hostages for female and teenage terrorists.
“Shiri Bibas, Kfir and Ariel were still alive. They were murdered in November. [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu refused even to discuss it for 50 days,” he said.
Tibon also lamented the delay by Israel in accepting a hostages-for-prisoners exchange offered in May last year, and accepted by the US Biden administration. A similar proposal was accepted by Israel in January this year, leading to the current ceasefire.
He described it as “the deal that we made now, basically from May … in May, some of the people were still alive, and now they came back dead”.
The retired IDF officer said he and bereaved father Yarden Bibas, released by Hamas, are demanding Israel proceed quickly to Phase 2 of the negotiations and exchanges.
The Tibons have argued Israel should have made the return of the 251 hostages abducted to Gaza on October 7 its top priority and not have launched its Gaza operation until all hostages were home.
Ahead of their Australian visit, Major-General Tibon told The AJN he wants “a state commission of inquiry” into the before and after of October 7.
Gali Tibon spoke of the trauma parents are still suffering over hasty instructions to trapped family members they made during the pogrom. “There are so many parents who are angry with themselves. Why did I tell him to run? Why did I tell him to stay?”
The event was attended by UIA CEO Peter Horowitz, UIA Victoria president David Slade, Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Philip Zajac, Zionist Federation of Australia CEO Alon Cassuto, World Union for Progressive Judaism chair Phyllis Dorey and Progressive Judaism Victoria president Maureen Barten.
The Tibons also spoke at Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne and Emanuel Synagogue in Sydney.
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