When Children Pay the Price, The Cost is Too High!

Note: The topic and some pictures are upsetting. Have tissues handy. May Their Memories Be a Blessing. The short video above includes a new song written by Melissa Ritter (cover editing by Penny S. Tee) to honor the Bibas family and all of the hostages.

The Bibas children
Sweet Shayna Punims (In Yiddish: pretty faces)
A 9-month-old, and 4-year-old
Killed by strangulation?
Then butchered to cover the crime up?
The Bibas children couldn’t rest.
Where is Mommy?
Where is Daddy?
The savages sent the wrong body,
Disrespecting the families and nations of both.
Hamas lied and said they were killed by the IDF.
Surprised?

Shiri tried to comfort her babies.
Mama Bear was no match for Hamas’ malevolence.
She did what she could to protect them.
Hamas murdered Shiri in captivity.
Hamas also massacred Shiri’s parents on
October 7, 2023.

484 Days
We waited for Yarden to be freed from Hamas captivity.
Freedom played in his imagination every day.
How many teeth does Kfir have now?
Is funny Ariel still able to laugh?
Longed to keep Shiri warm in his arms.
Where is the IDF?

Greeted by his father and sister February 1, 2025,
Where are my children?

Yarden now knows,
His loving wife and babies are gone.
He lovingly laid them to rest
Forever interred together in one casket.
Tears drenched all who listened
Yarden’s apologies flowed.

“Apologizes for not being able to come down
and personally hug each and every one of you.”
Offered to the sobbing crowds.

To his family…
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you all”
And he contemplated…

Ariel… “I’m sure you’re making all the angels
laugh with your silly jokes and impressions.”

Kfir… “I didn’t think our family could be more perfect,
and then you came and made it even more perfect.”

Shiri…”Mi Amor… Yarden implored…
Guard me so I don’t sink into darkness.
Mishmish, I love you!”

All of Israel paid their respects.
They bled orange honoring the Bibas’ beautiful hair.

Embed from Getty Images

Thousands lined the 40-mile funeral procession’s
Journey to lay the Bibas victims to rest.
Well-intended banners of sorry
Sadly Impotent.
The Jewish Diaspora grieved with him.
Missing?
Netanyahu, government officials, and the IDF.
The family told them they were NOT WELCOME!
Where was Netanyahu’s apology
for not protecting them they cried?
The long-held Israeli belief
That the IDF
Would always protect the Israeli people
SHATTERED.
The World?
Some noticed,
Depraved Hamas CELEBRATED!

Embed from Getty Images

GIVE YARDEN AND HIS REMAINING FAMILY THEIR PRIVACY
Time to heal from months as a hostage
AND
The FACT
His Family was horrifically Murdered.
Cruel survivor’s guilt is his latest torture.
Will Hashem give him mercy?
Can he heal?
May Yarden find solace & comfort
In the arms of his remaining family,
Israel, and Jewish tribe
Amen

Embed from Getty Images

BRING THE HOSTAGES HOME NOW!
We can’t forget the other hostages
Alive & Dead
Hamas had their way with them.
Nor the babies they killed on October 7
Forgive me, the facts are horrific
But we must see with our eyes wide open.
Babies and people burned alive.

Women raped.

Parents executed in front of their children.
Children in front of their parents.
The Devil Incarnate.

And what does Hamas do with Gazan children?
Use them as human shields.
The Gazan population is 50% children.
What happened was predictable,
But was it unavoidable?
A conundrum to be debated for years.

Jonathan Crickx, the UN agency’s spokesman
for the Palestinian territories:
“…no education, no play, no joy,”

Hamas builds their tunnels & operation centers
Within homes, schools, hospitals & mosques.
UNICEF estimates 19,000 children are unaccompanied.
How many have been killed and injured?
Numbers announced by Hamas are lies.
However, one child hurt, is too many.
The legacy of generations of war is not honorable,
Nor acceptable.
When will humans learn to be humane?

Many UNWRA schools were run by Hamas members
Principals, Administrators and Teachers
12 participated in October 7th murders; 30 assisted.
Gazan & West Bank Palestinian schools
Are named after terrorists
The P/A pays salaries to terrorist families
Under the “Pay for Slay” doctrine
Supported by our tax dollars.
The children’s textbooks are filled with
Incitement against Israelis,
antisemitic tropes,
glorifying terrorism and “martyrdom,”
and systematically erasing Israel’s existence.

Summer camp for Gazan children
Is Terrorist camp
“Pioneers of Liberation” camp
Military training for the next generation
Of murderers.
Computer simulations of
Killing Israeli soldiers at
Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The indoctrination starts young.
Unadulterated child abuse.

Yes, we know Israel is blamed
By the World
BUT who put the children and their families
Into harm’s way?
Who shot at them when Israel
Told them to evacuate?
Who taught them they would
Ascend to heaven if they kill Jews?
Sad urchins left to fend for themselves in the garbage.

And now the plague of propaganda
Promoting terrorism is
Seen on every college campus.
Jewish young adults are not safe.
Administrators look the other way.
Some teachers promote Hamas.
Fear of entering the IDF, is expected,
But attending a U.S. college?
Our children forced to walk by encampments
On the way to class
Calling for genocide of the Jewish people
Israel’s Destruction
Jews denied entrance into college libraries.

Pro-Palestinian students protest against Israel at an encampment outside the Kresge Auditorium on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 23, 2024, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Could you study or feel safe in these conditions?
This is the U.S. and Europe, not Nazi Germany!
We are on our way to HELL.
Where have we heard tales like this before?
The Holocaust.
It’s antisemitic and unconscionable.
If you agree, where is your voice?

62 Hostages still in captivity:
Israel has declared 35 to be dead.
Will we reach Part II of the outrageous truce?
As Israel is forced
To rebuild Hamas
With trained terrorists?
Will the remaining hostages come
Home alive?
Let’s hope so.
What will make Netanyahu insure their
Unharmed release?
Prayer is not enough.
Looking forward with bated breath
To all hostages being released.
Amen.

May All Hostages Return to Their Loved Ones.
And Those Lost Rest in Peace, שלום and سلام.