By The New York Post Editorial Board
Hamas made a sickening spectacle of Thursday’s handover of the remains of two toddlers, their mother and another hostage — weaponizing even this into what the terrorists surely see as a “propaganda victory.”
Yet the civilized world can only take the macabre affair as more evidence that hate rules Gazan society.
Rather than allow a simple, dignified transfer of the remains of innocents, the terrorists staged a twisted parade of the coffins in a Khan Younis cemetery before a crowd of cheering civilians.
In the face of such scenes, you have to ask: How should we define Hamas?
Is it only the goons with green headbands — or everyone there enthusiastically joining in this vile travesty?
Video of the original abduction of Shiri Bibas and her two little boys Kfir and Ariel has long stood as evidence of the horrific savagery of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks.
Now Hamas has offered fresh testimony to its own depravity by weaponizing the return of their bodies and that of Oded Lifshitz, 84.
Grotesquely, it turns out that the terrorists didn’t actually even return Shiri’s remains.
The sick stagecraft included a banner depicting Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu as a fanged, blood-stained vampire, plus labels on the coffins: For the dead boys, inscriptions claiming, “They were killed by USA bombs”; for the adults, messages declaring their “date of arrest” to have been Oct. 7, as if Hamas’ actions that day were anything but obscene atrocities.
All of which confirms yet again that Hamas must be eradicated — but what of the Gazans who watched and cheered on Thursday?
The grim truth is that the world allowed — and the United Nations assisted — Arab governments to spend the decades after 1948 turning the original 700,000 or so Palestinian refugees into a stateless population of 5 million, taught from the cradle to despise and dehumanize Israelis and Jews generally.
At this point, the cycle won’t break on its own: If Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest are driven from Gaza, some new band of barbarians seems certain to take over almost instantly.
No wonder a majority of Israelis back President Trump’s suggestion that Gaza’s population be evacuated en masse after the war, with no right of return.
No one has the obvious means and will to impose that particular answer, but the world can count on Hamas to keep making the extent of the problem as painfully obvious as possible: Expect it to make Saturday’s planned release of six more live hostages, and next week’s handover of more remains, every bit as appalling.
Hamas’ macabre handover of hostage remains shows how hate rules all Gaza https://t.co/4D12DJODso pic.twitter.com/GQuyfNV6nQ
— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) February 21, 2025
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