I need a break from the news. I’m sure you do, too. The weekend is here - finally - and we all need to breathe.

The unrelenting bulletins from Israel this week were grim. Just when you thought the reporting couldn’t get any more ghastly, it did.

By the end of the week, it had become surreal and macabre: Apologists for the terrorists were accusing defenders of Israel of fabricating stories about decapitated babies.

Prove it, these ghouls demanded. We want to see the photos.

Sure there are blood-soaked cribs and tiny car seats sodden with blood. Yes, infants were no doubt shot in their little cribs, stabbed in their car seats and burned in their homes, but where are the decapitated bodies you promised?

How did we get to this place? Who measures the depravity of mass murderers of children by their methods of execution? And who really believes there were any moral lines that Hamas would not cross?

By Thursday morning, The Jerusalem Post reported this: The Jerusalem Post can now confirm based on verified photos of the bodies that the reports of babies being burnt and decapitated in Hamas's assault on Kfar Aza are correct.

May their memory be a blessing. 

Do not show the photos. We believe, but we cannot look. We need to breathe.

I haven’t felt this wrung out or despondent about the state of the world since the week of September 11, 2001. I was a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot then. I wrote three columns a week and the first was due the day after the terror attacks. I had 24 hours to digest what had happened and try to make sense of it.

For a long time, I stared numbly at my computer screen. There are no words, I thought.

Eventually I found words - it was my job - but they were inadequate. 

This week was much the same. I apologize for the unrelentingly angry posts. I like to bring you humor occasionally. I like to poke fun at the absurdities of life. I want to make people think and smile. I love writing about politics, animals and football. 

Not this week.

It was important to look at what Hamas did to more than 1,000 Israelis who exactly one week ago had no idea they would not survive the weekend.

Unless there is a miracle, the months ahead are going to be filled with dark stories. We will write about some of them, but not all. We will go back to our usual mixture of topics.

But we will never forget this horrible week. With our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel we say, “Never Again!”