video still showing caskets containing Israelis celebrated in Gaza‘As Hamas Celebrates Dead Babies’: A Poem by Brian Yapko The Society February 23, 2025 Culture, Poetry 24 Comments . As Hamas Celebrates Dead Babies The Bibas deaths… how do I tell this news? A mother and her sons—all blameless Jews— Killed senselessly. My words seem desecration… For I have not one word of consolation, No explanation, nor a gift for silence When faced with ululating savage violence. No pretty words. Nor can I well control The pain and sheer disgust at those who stole The lives of little babes, who laughed and strangled Helpless necks, who then vaunted their mangled Dead bodies to all Gaza’s crowing cheer. I did not know these babes yet feel their fear, The fingers held too tightly to the throat— Breath taken with an “Allah Akbar” gloat. How do I now escape dark haunting dreams? How do I keep myself from raging screams Or else collapse in breath-defying sobbing? And all about us savages are robbing The West of all civility and grace. All decency is toppled from its place Outshouted by a world which hates what’s right And gladly chooses darkness over light While Jews are slaughtered, scapegoated and shamed. But Islam must not ever once be blamed. What do they think they build by taking lives From innocents, by worshipping their knives? How do I make this searing pain abate And stop myself from prayers infused with hate? In times like these when I can scarcely cope I yet know God’s in charge. This give me hope. . . Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Wimauma, Florida. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. 24 Responses Joseph S. Salemi February 23, 2025 The deliberate abduction, abuse, and final savage murder of this innocent mother and her small children sickens every civilized person. Horrible things happen in war, but killing captive infants with bare hands is staggering in its utter barbarity, and mindlessly unnecessary. If Hamas wanted these captives as bargaining chips in a negotiation there was no point in killing them, since the exchange of captives was already agreed upon. There is no other explanation except the one that Brian’s poem brings up — this atrocity was committed out of sheer, psychopathic hatred. Hamas may have thought “The Israelis will make a deal to get these people back, dead or alive. Killing them will be of no cost to us, and we can rid the world of a few more Jews. It will also be well-deserved revenge for us.” When you are dealing with savages, all bets are off. Unfortunately the savages include not just Hamas but thousands of stupid activists and demonstrators in our streets and college campuses. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 24, 2025 Thank you for this perceptive and frank comment, Joe, which articulates well the affront to civilization perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists. I believe you are 100% correct — their actions do not speak of political intrigue — they speak of a savage, genocidal impulse which seems to be all they are capable of. As far as they are concerned, the more dead Jews the better. No less than the enemies we eradicated in World War II, they are 100% at fault for the destruction of Gaza and the deaths caused in this war. 100%. I am grateful that we have an administration in place which recognizes the fact that if Hamas stopped fighting and returned the hostages, there would be peace. If Israel stops fighting, there will be no more Israel. Of course, that’s the genocidal endgame of all pro-Hamas advocates — especially those college activists you mention. I have nothing but withering contempt for those who claim some imaginary high ground on behalf of these murderous terrorists. Their hypocritical claims are nothing but a thinly-veiled and virulent antisemitism. Fortunately, most sane, moral people see through it. Reply Maria February 23, 2025 I suppose this is selfish, just needing to express the grief I feel over the suffering and death of these babies and their mother but it is truly unbearable. I have resolved that if anyone asks me to read the Koran so I can understand the religion , my reply would be If followers of this religion can kill babies with their bare hands and more, if they can behead seventy Christians in the Congo and we only know about this through the internet, so many, many go unreported, if they can do this and more, there is no way I would want to know anything else. I know all I need to know. Thank you for your poem and the opportunity to comment on this when there have been so many pro Palestinian protests. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 24, 2025 Maria, thank you for your heartfelt comment. The grief is so deep in this case because those little children, Kfir and Ariel (4 years old and 9 months old) were murdered by the terrorists, with their bare hands, in cold blood. And we don’t know if the mother comforted them as they died or if the children had to witness the murder of their mother. Horrific things were done not because of the unavoidable casualties of war but from a desire to torture and mutilate. These children and their mother represent all who are innocent and yet murdered as in the Holocaust. And their tormentors represent an utter loss of humanity. They have acted not even as animals which kill out of necessity but as devils. It’s hard to fathom this level of sadism. Here, by the way, is more information about the Bibas family. https://www.ajc.org/news/who-is-the-bibas-family-from-kibbutz-nir-oz I grieve with you for the 70 Christians who were beheaded in Congo by Islamic militants. This is a horrible tragedy and I am utterly baffled by the fact that this is not a major news story. Reply Warren Bonham February 23, 2025 Few have the bravery and skill needed to handle a topic like this. Thanks for skillfully tackling this head-on. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you very much, Warren. I appreciate the kind words and the support. Reply Jeff Eardley February 23, 2025 Powerful to read Brian. This sickening outrage is hard to put into words, but you have pretty much summed up what we are all feeling about recent events in Gaza. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you so much, Jeff. It’s great to hear from you and I know that so much is happening in the UK that makes this poem relevant to our English readers. Reply Russel Winick February 23, 2025 Brian – no need for an apology. It’s a great poem, and I, and I’m sure others as well, have also acted in excess poetic haste due to various emotions. What few people have done is write with your level of skill. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you, Russel, for understanding and forgiving the initial glitch I had in my prior opening lines (rhyming slaughter with a “daughter” who turned out to be a son.) As I had said in my now-deleted comment, I had written the poem Sunday morning in a 45-minute expression of outrage and was sloppier than I would normally expect of myself. I so appreciate your support. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant February 23, 2025 Brian, the horror of the callous, cold-blooded murder of a mother and her two precious sons shocks the senses and claws at the soul. You have managed to portray the incomprehension and the sick-to-the-stomach grief this evil deed brings with it. This heartfelt poem says more than any frigid news article could and I thank you wholeheartedly for your courage. My heart goes out to all those suffering at the hands of monsters. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Susan, I’m so very grateful for your support and kind words regarding my poor poetic effort to comment on this act of evil. As I say in the body of the poem, given this sensitive topic anything I write feels like a desecration. And yet to write nothing would be worse. As has been said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” If, as you say, I show courage in the writing of this piece, it’s because courageous poets like you and Dr. Salemi and Mike Bryant and a few other brave souls have convinced me that allowing my voice to be silenced out of fear is a form of spiritual death. Reply Roy Eugene Peterson February 24, 2025 This is a powerful heart-wrenching poem that clearly defines Hamas as the handmaidens of evil doers and desecrators of humanity. We must speak out as you have done so eloquently, but that is also insufficient to quell their insoluble resolute hatred. You have identified the only hope and sometimes like David, we must pray for defeat of the enemies that beset and upset us. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you so much for your kind and compassionate words, Roy. You are so right about that “insoluble resolute hatred.” Nothing seems capable of piercing their desire to serve their father below. Thank you for the reminder of King David and his faith in our Father above. You have now sent me to the Psalms this morning. In fact, Psalm 9 is perfect. Reply Michael Vanyukov February 24, 2025 The history of Islam and Muslim Jew-hate suggests that this evil committed by Arabs in Gaza – none of them protested but all took part – is not a glitch but a feature. Islam is a totalitarian ideology, and genocidal antisemitism in Islam started with its “prophet,” who exterminated the Jews of Banu Qurayza, the Jewish tribe in what was then Yathrib, a Jewish town, and now is called Medina. He did it in the manner borrowed later by the Nazis for Baby Yar, murdering Jews on the edge of a ravine, their mass grave. Brian, your feelings pierce one’s heart, over and over, and there is no end to pain and anger. Thank you. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Michael, thank you very much both for this supportive comment and for your many insights regarding Islam and its institutional and scriptural loathing of Jews and Judaism. That concerned, fair-minded people cannot understand the depth of this hatred and write it off so easily as an issue of real estate is frustrating and tragic. I continue to be baffled that otherwise good people think it appropriate to coddle Islam completely blind to the fact that this necessarily means destroying Jews and the West. We live in a world full of Neville Chamberlains at war with Winston Churchill rather than the true enemy. How do we identify that enemy” Here’s a good start.. How about a list of the top 20 terror organizations in the world: – ISIS - Al-Qaeda - Boko Haram - Taliban - Al-Shabaab - Hezbollah - Hamas - Lashkar-e-Taiba - Islamic Jihad Movement - Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan - Jaish-e-Mohammed - Jemaah Islamiyah - Abu Sayyaf Group - Haqqani Network - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen - Ansar al-Sharia - Ansar al-Islam - Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami - Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis Do you see any common denominator here? By their fruit you shall know them. We in the West have a real problem — especially if we refuse to acknowledge this problem because it interferes with a “kumbaya” everyone-is-good–at-heart ideology which is proven bankrupt over and over again. Romantic idealists simply cannot let the lie be recognized as a lie and some of them mangle the bible itself to support their ideology. Evil exists. Why is that so hard to acknowledge? Reply Julian D. Woodruff February 24, 2025 Thank you, Brian, for writing clearly and with great force about hatred of incomprehensible depth. I doubt there is anyone who can do it better. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you so much, Julian. I very much appreciate your support and your generosity. Reply Katya Voss February 24, 2025 Any side which celebrates dead babies is the wrong side, period! Although I am not Jewish, my heart breaks for the Jewish people and what they have endured and continue to endure. They have a right to exist in their own homes in peace without being attacked or hated. Praying for the families and friends of everyone affected by these horrible attacks. Reply Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you very much indeed, Katya, for your support and your kindness. The astonishing level of hatred and malice directed against the Jewish people is a terrible thing — especially when you take into account the historical tragedies that have befallen this people. Because you are not Jewish, let me give you some additional context: Jews are only 0.2 percent of the world’s population — a tiny number: 2 out of 1000. Islam, in contrast, is 24.1 percent of the world — 241 out of 1000 and well over 100 times the Jewish population. There are only 15,000,000 Jews in the entire world. By way of comparison, the Greater New York area has a population of 23,000,000. If Jews feel bullied when the 24% (with help!) attack the 0.2% there is good and objective reason. Thank you for your supportive words about being allowed to live in our ancestral homeland in peace. May it be so. Reply Elena February 28, 2025 They are pure evil and they are all monsters. Reply Brian A. Yapko March 1, 2025 Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Elena. I could not agree more. Monsters. Reply David Whippman March 8, 2025 Thanks for this well-written piece, Brian. Joseph Salemi is right. It sickens me when I see showbiz people and the rest spout cliches about “genocide” in Gaza. The fact is that in the eyes of such people, the terrorists have a kind of moral “get out of jail free” card. I hope they wake up in time, that’s all. Reply Brian Yapko March 9, 2025 Thank you so much, David, for your comment and insight. The intentional misuse and abuse of the word “genocide” is a particularly galling inversion when it is Hamas that is very candid about its intentions of eradicating the Jewish people and when 22 Arab states encompassing 98% of the Middle East and North Africa just aren’t enough. Israel is 8522 square miles. The Arab League is comprised of 5,148,014 square miles. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Joseph S. Salemi February 23, 2025 The deliberate abduction, abuse, and final savage murder of this innocent mother and her small children sickens every civilized person. Horrible things happen in war, but killing captive infants with bare hands is staggering in its utter barbarity, and mindlessly unnecessary. If Hamas wanted these captives as bargaining chips in a negotiation there was no point in killing them, since the exchange of captives was already agreed upon. There is no other explanation except the one that Brian’s poem brings up — this atrocity was committed out of sheer, psychopathic hatred. Hamas may have thought “The Israelis will make a deal to get these people back, dead or alive. Killing them will be of no cost to us, and we can rid the world of a few more Jews. It will also be well-deserved revenge for us.” When you are dealing with savages, all bets are off. Unfortunately the savages include not just Hamas but thousands of stupid activists and demonstrators in our streets and college campuses. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 24, 2025 Thank you for this perceptive and frank comment, Joe, which articulates well the affront to civilization perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists. I believe you are 100% correct — their actions do not speak of political intrigue — they speak of a savage, genocidal impulse which seems to be all they are capable of. As far as they are concerned, the more dead Jews the better. No less than the enemies we eradicated in World War II, they are 100% at fault for the destruction of Gaza and the deaths caused in this war. 100%. I am grateful that we have an administration in place which recognizes the fact that if Hamas stopped fighting and returned the hostages, there would be peace. If Israel stops fighting, there will be no more Israel. Of course, that’s the genocidal endgame of all pro-Hamas advocates — especially those college activists you mention. I have nothing but withering contempt for those who claim some imaginary high ground on behalf of these murderous terrorists. Their hypocritical claims are nothing but a thinly-veiled and virulent antisemitism. Fortunately, most sane, moral people see through it. Reply
Maria February 23, 2025 I suppose this is selfish, just needing to express the grief I feel over the suffering and death of these babies and their mother but it is truly unbearable. I have resolved that if anyone asks me to read the Koran so I can understand the religion , my reply would be If followers of this religion can kill babies with their bare hands and more, if they can behead seventy Christians in the Congo and we only know about this through the internet, so many, many go unreported, if they can do this and more, there is no way I would want to know anything else. I know all I need to know. Thank you for your poem and the opportunity to comment on this when there have been so many pro Palestinian protests. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 24, 2025 Maria, thank you for your heartfelt comment. The grief is so deep in this case because those little children, Kfir and Ariel (4 years old and 9 months old) were murdered by the terrorists, with their bare hands, in cold blood. And we don’t know if the mother comforted them as they died or if the children had to witness the murder of their mother. Horrific things were done not because of the unavoidable casualties of war but from a desire to torture and mutilate. These children and their mother represent all who are innocent and yet murdered as in the Holocaust. And their tormentors represent an utter loss of humanity. They have acted not even as animals which kill out of necessity but as devils. It’s hard to fathom this level of sadism. Here, by the way, is more information about the Bibas family. https://www.ajc.org/news/who-is-the-bibas-family-from-kibbutz-nir-oz I grieve with you for the 70 Christians who were beheaded in Congo by Islamic militants. This is a horrible tragedy and I am utterly baffled by the fact that this is not a major news story. Reply
Warren Bonham February 23, 2025 Few have the bravery and skill needed to handle a topic like this. Thanks for skillfully tackling this head-on. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you very much, Warren. I appreciate the kind words and the support. Reply
Jeff Eardley February 23, 2025 Powerful to read Brian. This sickening outrage is hard to put into words, but you have pretty much summed up what we are all feeling about recent events in Gaza. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you so much, Jeff. It’s great to hear from you and I know that so much is happening in the UK that makes this poem relevant to our English readers. Reply
Russel Winick February 23, 2025 Brian – no need for an apology. It’s a great poem, and I, and I’m sure others as well, have also acted in excess poetic haste due to various emotions. What few people have done is write with your level of skill. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Thank you, Russel, for understanding and forgiving the initial glitch I had in my prior opening lines (rhyming slaughter with a “daughter” who turned out to be a son.) As I had said in my now-deleted comment, I had written the poem Sunday morning in a 45-minute expression of outrage and was sloppier than I would normally expect of myself. I so appreciate your support. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant February 23, 2025 Brian, the horror of the callous, cold-blooded murder of a mother and her two precious sons shocks the senses and claws at the soul. You have managed to portray the incomprehension and the sick-to-the-stomach grief this evil deed brings with it. This heartfelt poem says more than any frigid news article could and I thank you wholeheartedly for your courage. My heart goes out to all those suffering at the hands of monsters. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 25, 2025 Susan, I’m so very grateful for your support and kind words regarding my poor poetic effort to comment on this act of evil. As I say in the body of the poem, given this sensitive topic anything I write feels like a desecration. And yet to write nothing would be worse. As has been said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” If, as you say, I show courage in the writing of this piece, it’s because courageous poets like you and Dr. Salemi and Mike Bryant and a few other brave souls have convinced me that allowing my voice to be silenced out of fear is a form of spiritual death. Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson February 24, 2025 This is a powerful heart-wrenching poem that clearly defines Hamas as the handmaidens of evil doers and desecrators of humanity. We must speak out as you have done so eloquently, but that is also insufficient to quell their insoluble resolute hatred. You have identified the only hope and sometimes like David, we must pray for defeat of the enemies that beset and upset us. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you so much for your kind and compassionate words, Roy. You are so right about that “insoluble resolute hatred.” Nothing seems capable of piercing their desire to serve their father below. Thank you for the reminder of King David and his faith in our Father above. You have now sent me to the Psalms this morning. In fact, Psalm 9 is perfect. Reply
Michael Vanyukov February 24, 2025 The history of Islam and Muslim Jew-hate suggests that this evil committed by Arabs in Gaza – none of them protested but all took part – is not a glitch but a feature. Islam is a totalitarian ideology, and genocidal antisemitism in Islam started with its “prophet,” who exterminated the Jews of Banu Qurayza, the Jewish tribe in what was then Yathrib, a Jewish town, and now is called Medina. He did it in the manner borrowed later by the Nazis for Baby Yar, murdering Jews on the edge of a ravine, their mass grave. Brian, your feelings pierce one’s heart, over and over, and there is no end to pain and anger. Thank you. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Michael, thank you very much both for this supportive comment and for your many insights regarding Islam and its institutional and scriptural loathing of Jews and Judaism. That concerned, fair-minded people cannot understand the depth of this hatred and write it off so easily as an issue of real estate is frustrating and tragic. I continue to be baffled that otherwise good people think it appropriate to coddle Islam completely blind to the fact that this necessarily means destroying Jews and the West. We live in a world full of Neville Chamberlains at war with Winston Churchill rather than the true enemy. How do we identify that enemy” Here’s a good start.. How about a list of the top 20 terror organizations in the world: – ISIS - Al-Qaeda - Boko Haram - Taliban - Al-Shabaab - Hezbollah - Hamas - Lashkar-e-Taiba - Islamic Jihad Movement - Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan - Jaish-e-Mohammed - Jemaah Islamiyah - Abu Sayyaf Group - Haqqani Network - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen - Ansar al-Sharia - Ansar al-Islam - Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami - Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis Do you see any common denominator here? By their fruit you shall know them. We in the West have a real problem — especially if we refuse to acknowledge this problem because it interferes with a “kumbaya” everyone-is-good–at-heart ideology which is proven bankrupt over and over again. Romantic idealists simply cannot let the lie be recognized as a lie and some of them mangle the bible itself to support their ideology. Evil exists. Why is that so hard to acknowledge? Reply
Julian D. Woodruff February 24, 2025 Thank you, Brian, for writing clearly and with great force about hatred of incomprehensible depth. I doubt there is anyone who can do it better. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you so much, Julian. I very much appreciate your support and your generosity. Reply
Katya Voss February 24, 2025 Any side which celebrates dead babies is the wrong side, period! Although I am not Jewish, my heart breaks for the Jewish people and what they have endured and continue to endure. They have a right to exist in their own homes in peace without being attacked or hated. Praying for the families and friends of everyone affected by these horrible attacks. Reply
Brian A. Yapko February 26, 2025 Thank you very much indeed, Katya, for your support and your kindness. The astonishing level of hatred and malice directed against the Jewish people is a terrible thing — especially when you take into account the historical tragedies that have befallen this people. Because you are not Jewish, let me give you some additional context: Jews are only 0.2 percent of the world’s population — a tiny number: 2 out of 1000. Islam, in contrast, is 24.1 percent of the world — 241 out of 1000 and well over 100 times the Jewish population. There are only 15,000,000 Jews in the entire world. By way of comparison, the Greater New York area has a population of 23,000,000. If Jews feel bullied when the 24% (with help!) attack the 0.2% there is good and objective reason. Thank you for your supportive words about being allowed to live in our ancestral homeland in peace. May it be so. Reply
Brian A. Yapko March 1, 2025 Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Elena. I could not agree more. Monsters. Reply
David Whippman March 8, 2025 Thanks for this well-written piece, Brian. Joseph Salemi is right. It sickens me when I see showbiz people and the rest spout cliches about “genocide” in Gaza. The fact is that in the eyes of such people, the terrorists have a kind of moral “get out of jail free” card. I hope they wake up in time, that’s all. Reply
Brian Yapko March 9, 2025 Thank you so much, David, for your comment and insight. The intentional misuse and abuse of the word “genocide” is a particularly galling inversion when it is Hamas that is very candid about its intentions of eradicating the Jewish people and when 22 Arab states encompassing 98% of the Middle East and North Africa just aren’t enough. Israel is 8522 square miles. The Arab League is comprised of 5,148,014 square miles. Reply
