"Hatikvah": A song of hope that carries Israel through its darkest hour

Tomorrow, Israel will lower three coffins into the earth in Zohar—Shiri Bibas, 32, and her boys, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, not yet 1 when they were ripped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. The ground will swallow them, but it cannot bury the anguish that gnaws at a nation still staggering from the horrors of October 7, 2023. As the mourners stand in silence, the trembling notes of "Hatikvah" will rise—Israel’s anthem, a fragile thread of hope stitched through centuries of sorrow. Today, as we reel from the brutality that stole this mother and her redheaded sons, those words feel heavier, more vital, than ever: “Our hope is not yet lost.”

Shiri Bibas clung to her babies as Hamas militants stormed her home 505 days ago, her face a mask of terror in footage that seared itself into our collective soul. Ariel, a mischievous boy who loved superheroes, and Kfir, a toothless infant clutching a pink elephant toy, were the youngest hostages of that black day—symbols of innocence defiled. Their father, Yarden, was dragged away separately, bloodied and beaten, only to return alive on February 1, a hollow victory overshadowed by the dread of what became of his family. Now we know: Shiri and her boys were murdered in captivity, Kfir and Ariel with bare hands, according to the IDF, their tiny bodies returned in black coffins under a gray Gaza sky. Shiri’s remains, misidentified at first in a cruel twist by Hamas, came home at last on February 21—a mother reunited with her children only in death.

The pain is a knife twisting in Israel’s heart. In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where posters of the Bibas family fluttered for 16 months, tears mingle with candle wax. “I think today is one of the saddest days of my 40 years in Israel,” said Nicky Cregor, a social worker, echoing a sentiment that hums through the streets. The orange balloons for Kfir’s second birthday last month, the murals of his ginger curls—they haunt us now, reminders of a hope that slipped through our fingers. And yet, as we gather tomorrow to bury them, "Hatikvah" will sound again, its melody a lifeline amid this wreckage.

Written in 1878 by Naftali Herz Imber, "Hatikvah" was born from a poet’s ache for a homeland, a dream of freedom after two thousand years of exile. “To be a free nation in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem,” it promises—a vow that carried Jews through pogroms, through the Holocaust, through wars that sought to erase us. Today, it is no mere song; it is a cry from the depths, a defiance against the evil that snuffed out Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir. Hamas thought they could break us, parading coffins in a macabre ceremony, taunting us with lies about airstrikes and misidentified bodies. They were wrong. Our hope, battered and bloodied, endures.

The October 7 attack—1,200 dead, 251 abducted—ripped open a wound that festers still. The Bibas family became its face: Shiri’s desperate grip on her sons, Yarden’s sobs in a Hamas video, forced to mourn them before their deaths were even confirmed. For 16 months, we held our breath, praying they’d come home alive. Ofri Bibas Levy, Yarden’s sister, begged us not to eulogize them yet, clinging to that “tikvah,” that hope. Now, as Yarden faces a life without them, the anthem’s words sting with fresh agony: “The hope of two thousand years.” It’s not just history—it’s now, it’s Shiri shielding her boys, it’s every parent in Nir Oz who lost everything.

Tomorrow’s funeral will be private, but the grief is public, a shared scar across Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas “monsters,” vowing they’d pay for this “cruel and evil” violation. Forensic chief Dr. Chen Kugel found no evidence of bombing on Shiri’s body, dismantling Hamas’s claims—another lie in their grotesque theater. The civilized world, Netanyahu urged, must condemn this. But condemnation won’t bring back Ariel’s laughter or Kfir’s first steps. It won’t erase the image of Shiri, a lioness fighting for her cubs, only to fall with them.

So why does "Hatikvah" still matter? Because in its fragile, soaring notes, we find not just mourning, but meaning. It’s the voice of a people who’ve faced annihilation and risen again, who bury their dead and still dare to dream. As we stand over those graves tomorrow, throats tight with tears, we’ll sing of a hope that outlasts terror—a hope Shiri embodied, even in her final moments. Her family’s story, etched in our anthem, reminds us why we fight, why we endure: to be free, to live, to ensure no more mothers and babies are torn from their homes.

Tomorrow, we will sing it, loud and proud, through our sobs and with our tissues, the message furious in its agony: We may be down, but we are not out. We may be devastated, but we are still here and we are still fighting, our soldiers deployed throughout the country and in enemy territory, they carry our hope as they carry their guns, willing to sacrifice everything so that we can live in their blessed, blessed land.

Israel is heartbroken, yes. But "Hatikvah" is our heartbeat. It pulses through this darkness, promising that our spirit, like Shiri’s love for her boys, cannot be extinguished. Tomorrow, as the earth closes over them, we’ll sing it louder—because even in this unbearable pain, our hope is not yet lost.