Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan marked the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre, during a UN General Assembly discussion on the Israel-Hamas war today (Tuesday).
Kfir was just nine months old when he was kidnapped, together with his parents Shiri and Yarden, and his four-year-old brother Ariel. The entire Bibas family has been held hostage for over three months.
Ambassador Erdan told the General Assembly delegates: “Many of you here are parents or grandparents. Each milestone in your children’s lives is a celebration. Their first step. Their first word. That first smile and laugh. Babies are a source of light and hope – a symbol of life. Yet Kfir – little baby Kfir – has become a symbol of the vilest cruelty known to man – the cruelty of Hamas. And tragically, Kfir is about to spend his first birthday as a hostage of Hamas."
"A quarter of Kfir’s life has been spent as a hostage. He was kidnapped before he could even learn to say ‘mama.’ Is he getting the food and vitamins he needs to grow and develop? Is he crawling? How can a baby be a target? A deliberate target? What kind of monsters intentionally take a baby hostage and treat him like an enemy? It is so painful that a baby is being held hostage by terrorists, that instead of love, Kfir is surrounded by sheer evil," he said.
"But above all, it is utterly heart-wrenching that, to the UN, the pain of an innocent baby has been all but forgotten. For heaven’s sake, a baby is about to spend his first birthday as a hostage!
"If you ignore the suffering of our children, the suffering of little baby Kfir, I will stand here today and mark Kfri's first birthday," Erdan told the General Assembly. "I will remind you of your moral obligation to fight for Kfir and his right to celebrate his birthday."
He held up a birthday cake with a picture of little Kfir and said, "Kfir, this birthday cake is for you. You are the reason Israel is fighting day and night. My only wish for you, for your first birthday, is that next year, God willing, you will celebrate your birthday surrounded by the love of your family, and that we will live in a world where the suffering of Israeli babies is important to the UN."
Erdan asked that Kfri's cake "remain here as a painful reminder so that every speaker today remembers Kfir and our duty to bring him home."