The child wrapped in a shroud of cloth dead at only five-year-old,
with the endless bombing, bodies, and death all around,
The killing of the innocents, the weeping and
human pain, above that crying, was the terrible crashing sound.
Bombs exploding, guns firing many died as Gaza and millions more around the world cried and wept.
Bodies from buildings now in ruins were pulled by hand as rescuers, grim-faced their anger in silence kept.
For no cries or words could express the horror that
Israel brought in anger and hate,
Killing children by the thousand in self-defense
told the people it was their historical fate.
Driven from their homes, everything destroyed,
reduced to garbage, ashes, and concrete rubble,
mass murder and genocide, some say, is only the beginning
of their trouble.
Hunger and disease, sickness and early death
ten thousand and still counting five thousand children are the victims that Israel brought,
Retaliation for the killing of a thousand-four
hundred was the brutal revenge that Israel sought.
No balance, no proportion for the evil that Hamas did,
but why were innocent children in their thousands killed,
With wounded children crying, the hospitals are filled.
No lights, water, and little food the people tremble in
desperation, worry with overwhelming fears,
With bombs still falling, people dying where is Picasso and his Guernica
to move human hearts to tears?
It was Hitler’s bombers and Franco’s revenge
that the Spanish town of Guerica was destroyed,
A war so vicious, so callus, Picasso painted a masterpiece,
his talent totally employed.
In battle with Hamas, killing kids is not defense
but brutal war crimes that never seem to end,
There will be a reckoning, justice will be done,
for the culprits of the massacres they cannot justify, or defend.
How can they win? for every fighter dead five more stand up and join the vicious fight,
A totally useless war that has brought upon the nation a dark cloud, a moral blight.
For a hundred years or more that wound will never heal,
like a burning coal it will sear every heart and mind.
Every nation will remember the cruel destruction the Palestinians endured
while no peace or ceasefire could they even find.
Violent attack, dislocation, occupation that started seventy years ago,
The great injustice for which Israel has no shame,
they stole the land, drove away the people for which they must take the blame,
From which the seeds of anger and the hatred grow.
Massive marches around the world condemn injustice and a ceasefire they demand,
Meetings of the nations where they talk and condemn, Israel, with a nuclear bomb,and impunity,
no intervention will be planned.
The suffering of the Gaza people will continue
with injustice growing like a mushroom cloud,
there will be no two-nations where they agree to share the ancient land,
While the right-wing fanatics have political power
and western nations will never bend, then a cease fire and peace talks are for now,
the only possible demand.
Irish Father Shay Cullen, SSC, established the Preda Foundation in Olongapo City in 1974 to promote human rights and the rights of children, especially victims of sex abuse. The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of LiCAS.news.