The Case of a Hamas-Slain Physician: The Values of Gaza and the Promise of Human Life in the Middle East

The crises in the Middle East are a test of our humanity, asking how to react to a grotesque provocation for which there is no remedy. And in this test, we in the West are not doing well.

I want to challenge the suggestion that Gazan lives do not matter because Palestinians sympathize with Hamas. People have the right to life because they have odious views, and almost half of Gazans are children. More than two million people in Gaza have been stuck in a siege and are being punished.

The United States speaks a good deal about principles, but I fear that President Biden has embedded a hierarchy of human life in official American policy. He should have taken issue with the killings of Jews by Hamas but he is not sure about the value of Gazan lives. Whether he is standing side by side with Israel or against it, it is not always clear.

The Biden administration has called for additional aid for Israel and for humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. Defensive weapons for Israel’s Iron Dome system would make sense, but in practice, is the idea that we will help pay for humanitarians to mop up the blood caused in part by our weapons?

What should we tell Dr. Iyad Abu Karsh, a Gaza doctor who lost his wife and son in a bombing and then had to care for his injured daughter? He had to deal with the deaths of his loved ones, and so he didn’t have time to care for his niece or sister.

Biden urged America to stand firmly behind the two countries, who were attacked by forces that wanted to destroy them. Fair enough. Imagine ifUkraine responded to Russia’s war crimes by bombing a Russian city and cutting off water and electricity, and making doctors perform surgeries on patients without anesthesia.

I am not sure Americans would say, “Well, Putin started it.” Too bad about those Russian children, but they should have chosen somewhere else to be born.

Israel, Gaza, and God: how should we live in the face of persecution? A prayer reaffirming Aziza Hasan, from a devout Muslim

The determination to wipe Hamas out is based on the fact that the attacks were brutal and fit in with a history of pogroms and the Holocaust. “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist,” declared Giora Eiland, a former head of the Israeli National Security Council. “There is no other option for ensuring the security of the State of Israel.”

A prolonged ground invasion seems to me a particularly risky course, likely to kill large numbers of Israeli soldiers, hostages and especially Gazan civilians. Israel is better than that. Leveling cities is what the Syrian government did in Aleppo or Russia did in Grozny; it should not be an American-backed undertaking by Israel in Gaza.

The best answer to this test is to try even in the face of provocation to cling to our values. Despite our biases, we try to uphold all lives as having equal value. Some children are valued more than others, that’s not moral clarity, but moral myopia. We need to protect Israeli children but not the children in Gaza.

Aziza Hasan, a devout Muslim, looked out at the group gathered around her, spoke of the loved ones who had died in Israel and Gaza and began reciting the first chapter of the Quran.

“On my right side is Gabrielle, God’s strength,” she told the crowd, translating the song. “Behind me, God’s healer, Raphael. Above my head is God’s divine presence.”

The Los Angeles Neighborhood of a Los Angeles Center for the Dialogue between Israel and Hamas in the Light of the Oct. 15 War

On this late afternoon of Oct. 15, the war between Israel and Hamas was well underway as Ms. Hasan and Ms. Hodos sat on parched grass at a bustling park six miles west of downtown Los Angeles. There is a circle of Jews and Muslims.

More than 500 Muslim and Jewish people in Los Angeles have been helped by NewGround, a nonprofit fellowship program that gives them help to listen, deal with disagreement, and become friends.

Amjad Abukwaik was born in Gaza, but now owns a pharmacy on Palestine Way in the suburb of Paterson.

Every person in Little Ramallah seems to have a loved one who was killed in the last two weeks. Abukwaik lists friends among the thousands killed since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

Locals call Abukwaik Amu, which means “uncle” in Arabic. Abukaik used to speak to his customers, now he doesn’t, he is very quiet.

Since this war began, Republican leaders have introduced a bill banning anyone with a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority from seeking asylum. It’s already difficult for a Palestinian to do so in the U.S.

“It’s not even part of the discourse,” says Rania Mustafa, executive director of the Palestinian American Community Center. It went back to the idea that lives of Palestinians are not worth it. We have been dehumanized for some time.

“I am proud that I have the right to speak because I am American,” he said. “I feel like I’m not only speaking, I’m yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs, to deaf ears.”

The fate of Gaza, as revealed by dairy farmers in Lone Rock, Wisconsin, after the September 11, 2001, attacks by Hamas terrorists

Food, water and other supplies are in desperately short supply in Gaza, where officials say the health system is on the brink of collapse after Israel declared a complete siege of the already blockaded enclave nearly two weeks ago.

RandySchmidt a dairy farmer in Lone Rock, Wis. said the president’s appeal for military aid was going to be a hard sell in these parts.

In the past, Mr. Schmidt owned a dairy farm that was voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election from 1980 until 2020, when voters in the district went for former President Trump.

“I mean, money comes hard here,” Mr. Schmidt said. “It’s been a relatively tough year of farming for us. I think as a country, we do support Israel, but I couldn’t believe we can do that much.”

The responses to the violence in the Middle East and Ukraine were less moral than economic in suburban Milwaukee. The terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israelis, in particular, were triggering for her, she said.

Ms Lucas said that there had been a fight between the two. She said the way that it was handled broke her heart, because of the way the killings and kidnappings of Israeli families were handled. “It took me back to 9/11 — the same feeling, the same fear of, you know, is it going to happen to us, or who’s next?”

She and her son Michael were visiting Holy Hill, which is a basilica on a forested hillside, to take in the fall colors. As African Americans, they said, they felt conflicted about the president’s call to side with Israel. They sympathized with Palestinians and the long discrimination they have been enduring, but they could not condone terrorist attacks.

Janet Lucas said there are times when she can see both sides of it. I also wondered if the United States or any other country could help them come to some form of peace.

The Israelis and the Palestinians: Did Hamas Get What It Take To Get It Wrong, or Did the Israelis Want to Retaliate?

An armed hostage rescue is considered too risky and dangerous at this moment, experts say, leaving officials from the constellation of countries feverishly continuing their negotiations.

Hamas political leaders are trying to distance their group from the atrocities that were committed by its members, saying that it was the angry Gazans who kidnapped the civilians. The Hamas fighters have released videos that show the killing of civilians.

After the hostages were released Friday night, Israel may have agreed to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on Saturday morning, according to a former head of the Shin Bet. He said Hamas’s motive might have been to inspire Israelis who have loved ones in captivity in Gaza to pressure their government to delay the impending ground invasion until more hostages are released.

There are still many questions about why the Raanans were released. The two may have been healthy, according to Robert D’Amato, a former F.B.I. agent.

Another obvious reason the Raanans were chosen, Mr. D’Amico and others said, is that they are Americans — though there are up to 10 more Americans in captivity. Hamas might be trying to temper Israeli retaliation on Gaza by gaining some good will from the Biden administration. President Biden’s team and the Americans have been advising Israel on how it should war on Gaza, although it’s not known how much Israel listens to what they say.

Hamas and Hezbollah: Israeli airstrikes and the northern airports of Damascus and Aleppo

Even as Israel has told Gazans to head south, airstrikes have continued to hit that part of the enclave. And an Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said on Saturday night that Israel would “deepen” attacks on Gaza overall ahead of the “next stages” of the war — a reference to a widely expected ground offensive.

At least 55 people were killed by overnight raids on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Health ministry stated that more than 4, 600 people had been killed in Gaza in the past two weeks.

Israel has confirmed that 212 people are being held hostage in Gaza. Military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said on Sunday that Israeli strikes overnight had killed dozens of Palestinian fighters, including the deputy chief of Hamas rocket forces.

As Israel’s military ramped up its warnings for civilians to flee northern Gaza, many people there said that doing so was not an option because of cost — and that it was no guarantee of safety.

Since the Hamas attack, the Settler violence against Palestinians has increased. At least five Palestinians have been killed by settlers, according to Palestinian authorities, and rights groups say settlers have torched cars and attacked several small Bedouin communities, forcing them to evacuate to other areas.

In the West Bank, Israel rarely uses airpower. Israel says its forces have detained over 700 suspects in the West Bank, including 480 members of Hamas, since the start of hostilities.

Meanwhile, Israel also carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets on the border with Lebanon on Saturday, after one Israeli soldier was hit by an anti-tank missile in northern Israel. “We are in the heart of the battle today,” said Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, on Saturday, the same day that the group said six of its fighters were killed.

To the northeast, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes early Sunday targeted the international airports of the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, killing one person. The runways were damaged. The Israeli military was silent at the time.

The World Health Organization’s First Drop in the Bucket: Medical Supplies, Food and Water for Medical Relief, Traum Treatment and Chronic Disease

The Pentagon is sending additional air defense missile system battalions to the Middle East, as well as an anti-ballistic missile defense system called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.

The US has had a lot of naval power in the area recently, including two aircraft carriers and a number of Marines.

Loaded on the trucks were medical supplies for trauma treatment and chronic disease, the World Health Organization said Saturday. The delivery also included some food, mattresses and blankets. Aid groups say that fuel is needed to power hospitals and desalination plants for much-needed water.

Lynn Hastings told NPR that the arrival of the trucks Saturday “represents a very small first but important start.” It’s a drop in the bucket.

The cost of travel had gone up because of the risk of Israeli airstrikes on the road, according to Amani Abu Odeh, who lives in Gaza’s north. She said drivers were now charging between $200 and $300 to take a family south. Before the war, the same trip cost about $3 a person.

“We can’t even afford to eat,” Ms. Abu Odeh said. “We don’t have the money to leave.” Instead, she and her family are in a single home.

“We’re going to end up in the streets”: Yasser Shaban’s cousin, a civilian servant, and a threat of collective punishment

She wrote on X that it was a threat of collective punishment if they were to designate hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians unwilling or unable to flee as terrorists. She claimed targeting civilians was a war crime.

That — coupled with the escalating humanitarian crisis across the enclave — is one of several reasons some families say they are staying put in the north.

“I did not go to the south mainly because I know no one there; where am I to go?” said Yasser Shaban, 57, a civil servant in Gaza City. We are going to end up in the streets.

Mr. Shaban said a cousin took his family to the south soon after airstrikes on Gaza City began in the hours after Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7. But a week ago, he said, an Israeli airstrike hit the place where they were sheltering in the city of Khan Younis, killing the cousin’s wife and two daughters. The cousin returned to Gaza City with his surviving family members — a wounded son and his sister — to be treated at Al Shifa Hospital.