Hamas victim memorial featuring Shiri Bibas and sons targeted by vandals in Milan, Italy

A memorial mural dedicated to Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 10 months, who were kidnapped and brutally killed by Hamas terrorists while in captivity, was vandalized earlier this month during a memorial service for the victims of the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

The artwork was created by contemporary pop artist and activist AleXsandro Palombo, known for his thought-provoking installations, including a visual of the deceased former pontiff, Pope Francis, holding a buoy, with the body of a drowned Syrian toddler, 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who died in 2015 while fleeing the Middle East, lying at his feet.

The Bibas family mural was installed in Milan, Italy, outside the Qatari consulate.

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“The fact that a mural dedicated to a mother and her two children who were murdered can be defaced without provoking public outrage is the symptom of a sick society and a sign of political and cultural weakness,” Palombo told Fox News Digital.

“In recent years, parts of the political left and activist movements have ended up legitimizing extremist pro-Palestinian factions that don’t speak of peace, but of hatred. They don’t defend the rights of Palestinians, they exploit them, effectively promoting the propaganda of Hamas’s throat-cutters.”

The face of Shiri was obscured by an image originally crafted by Vancouver street artist iHeart, depicting a boy addicted to digital feedback and crying over Instagram likes.

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The mural of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons in Milan, Italy, by contemporary artists and activist AleXsandro Palombo was defaced during a memorial service for the victims of the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. (AleXsandro Palombo)

Creative modifications were made, including a red bullseye stamped on the boy’s forehead, with the words “No War” displayed beneath the image.

The Stanley Park artwork gained viral attention in 2014 after catching the eye of the elusive artist Banksy.

Palombo decreed the violation of the Bibas family memorial “not an act of protest, but a serious desecration.”

“This is not a dialogue between works of art, but a deliberate act of erasure,” he said. “That face was not chosen to add meaning, but to obscure it. It is an attempt to replace a specific, painful and documented memory with a generic, emotional image that mocks and lends itself easily to manipulation. It is a way of stripping suffering of its significance, turning it into an ideological mask.”

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The identity of the person who defaced Shiri’s image remains unknown. However, Palombo said that Islamic fundamentalism is gaining followers, even in Milan, a city he believes should symbolize “openness, democracy and civic awareness.”

Palombo also asserts that antisemitism was a factor in the defacement.

“The message is not ambiguous, it’s an antisemitic act disguised as activism, exploiting aesthetics to channel a form of cultural radicalization,” Palombo told Fox News Digital.

“It’s not about expressing an opinion, it’s about undermining memory, attacking its public space, normalizing hatred through visual gestures. Antisemitism today doesn’t march, it seeps in. It disguises itself as debate, appropriates shared languages, infiltrates art to silence other voices. And when freedom of expression is used to deny that of others, it’s no longer freedom, it’s a strategy of destabilization.”

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This undated photo provided by Hostages Family Forum shows Shiri Bibas, who was abducted and brought to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP)

The defacement of the Bibas family mural is not the first of Palombo’s work to be disrespected.

In 2024, just hours after unveiling a mural dedicated to Nova Festival survivor Vlada Patapov, the artwork was damaged.

Palombo’s murals dedicated to Auschwitz survivor Sami Modiano, Italian Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre and Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck have also been vandalized in the past.

“My art is not decoration, it is testimony,” Palombo said. “Anyone who thinks they can erase it with a spray can or a threat has already lost.”

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Although Palombo is not Jewish, he told Fox News Digital that he has been inundated with antisemitic insults daily, along with receiving death threats over the past three years.

“The risk of vandalism is real, but it’s not a deterrent, it’s part of the battlefield of memory,” he said. “Balancing the need to honor the victims with the challenges of public art means accepting that every work is also a stronghold, an act of visual resistance. And if someone defaces it, they don’t weaken it: they make it even more necessary.”