At the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Israel, where the pediatric unit has been moved underground due to the danger of shelling, sick Gazans lay alongside sick Israelis as a clown hopped around trying to coax smiles.
An Israeli doctor said that his facility had close ties with Gaza's Shifa hospital, and accepted many of its patients who need treatment the Gazan hospital cannot provide. He said it wasn't uncommon to have a colleague in Gaza call him for assistance even as rockets rained down on Ashkelon. "It might seem completely absurd," the doctor was heard to say. "But we have the privilege to be doctors. Our medical ethics do not distinguish between patients. We treat whoever needs to be treated."
Amidst the flood of news and commentary about the war in Gaza, this little piece captivated me. Picture this: Palestinians wounded by Israeli air strikes are treated by Israeli doctors in Israeli hospitals that have been forced underground because of the threat of Palestinian air strikes. The doctor was right: this is an absurd (and wonderful) snapshot. Even in the midst of the horror of this war, there are places where Israelis and Palestinians are experiencing one another as suffering human beings, worthy of care and compassion, all of whom want the same things for themselves and their families.
The hospital scene highlights the tragedy of this war – that so many people are dead, wounded, terrorized, and traumatized. And the scene highlights the war's absurdity: if Israelis and Palestinians can see one another's humanity in the hospital, why not at the negotiating table?
I am anguished by this war, on so many levels. But perhaps at the core of my torment is the sense that this is senseless. It seems to me that both sides – Israel and Hamas, each in its own way, each with the power that it commands (Israel with the power of a great army, Hamas with the power of guerrilla warfare) are trapped in the same destructive illusion: that there is a military solution to this conflict, that through violence we can make the other side go away. These strategies have not worked for the past one hundred years, and I feel sure they will not work now. If only the wisdom present at the Barzilai hospital could infect the circles of power in Israel and in Gaza, perhaps something new could be tried, something less absurd and less tragic for all.