MOSHAV HAYOGEV, Israel — In a pristine olive grove in northern Israel, where supporters from around the world have adopted indigenous olive trees, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet Huckabee, paid tribute on Thursday to the Israeli family that became the face of the hostages held in Gaza.
The Huckabees unveiled a memorial plaque on an olive tree dedicated by a non-Jewish Floridian in memory of the Bibas family—Shiri and her sons, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir—who were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and murdered in captivity in Gaza.
“It is very sobering to meet a family who has gone through so much suffering,” Huckabee said after meeting the children’s father, Yarden Bibas. “It is always a reminder to me that so many people in the world don’t understand what the people of Israel went through on Oct. 7 and what they continue to go through.”
He noted that the approximately 1,200 Israelis murdered and more than 250 taken hostage in the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust would be the per capita equivalent of some 40,000 Americans killed and 10,000 taken hostage.
“Imagine what the reaction would have been,” he said. “I wish there was a greater enlightenment among the rest of the world of not only what Israel experienced but what it has to do to make sure that this never happens again.”
A personal connection to the land
The olive grove at Moshav HaYogev—whose name means “farmer” in Hebrew—is located a few miles west of Afula, near the biblical site of Megiddo. Through the “My Tree in Israel” initiative, supporters around the world can adopt an olive tree and receive olive oil produced from it, creating a lasting personal connection to the land.
Among the adopted trees are ones dedicated to U.S. President Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, his daughter, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Israeli-American philanthropist and physician Dr. Miriam Adelson.
“Now your whole family is deeply rooted in the Land of Israel,” Kobi Assaf, founder and director of “My Tree in Israel,” told the former Baptist minister and longtime supporter of the Jewish state.
Most of the trees, however, are dedicated not to public figures but to individuals and families from North America, as well as congregations such as Temple Judea of Palm Beach, Fla.
The initiative now has more than 1,500 participants, approximately 60% from the North American Jewish community and 40% from the evangelical Christian community.
One of the trees commemorates IDF Sgt. Reef Harush, 20, who was killed fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip on April 6, 2024. His family attended Thursday’s ceremony and shared photographs of their son with the Huckabees.
They told the ambassador and his wife that they were certain their ever-smiling son was smiling once again and had found peace.
