Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

The other day, I was reading my grandson the Dr. Seuss classic, “In a People House.” It was a needed respite for me, a break from incessantly following the news of the war in Israel, albeit that the Red Alert app on my phone sounded throughout, indicating continued rocket fire from Hamas terrorists in Gaza at Israeli towns and cities. Just another day and another war crime in case you’re keeping score.

Try as I might to separate myself from the war, even with the unadulterated pleasure of reading to my grandson, I just couldn’t. Between the Red Alert, my son reporting that he will be going into Gaza, and the news of Israel encircling Shifa hospital (followed by the news of the discovery of an armed terrorist bunker in the basement of Rantisi hospital), while I was reading what belongs in a “people house,” I was shocked at what’s been reported what’s in and under Gazan hospitals.

It’s unthinkable to have to write this, or that Israel should have to be defending its position as it enters a Gazan hospital to rout out the documented proof of terrorists hiding within, and to rescue the hostages believed to be underneath them.

But it’s also unthinkable, that the Islamic terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would use Gaza’s hospitals as the hideout under which to build sophisticated networks of bunkers and tunnels, including elevators, all to protect themselves under the human shields of countless patients, not to mention the hostages who they kidnapped.

It’s unthinkable that the terrorist are using Gazan hospitals where they are hiding themselves, as well as storing significant arms, and from which they are shooting rockets and automatic weapons at Israelis, making the Gazan hospitals legitimate and necessary military targets.

It’s unthinkable that as Gazan civilians who had taken refuge in a hospital and tried to flee, that Hamas terrorists opened fire on the Arab civilians, trying to force them back into the hospital to remain, unsafe, as human shields, with no regard for even the loss of the Palestinian Arabs whose society they hijacked.

It’s unthinkable that rather than blaming Hamas for these war crimes, literal crimes against humanity, much of the world, including many western leaders are blaming Israel for its response to the massacre inflicted on Oct. 7, including attacking the terrorist bases inside the hospitals.

It’s unthinkable that when Israel unequivocally documented Gazan hospitals being used for these purposes, showing where hostages have been bound, a baby bottle in an area adjacent to massive weapons cache in the basement of a children’s hospital, and more, that much of the world refuses to see the truth.

It’s unthinkable that much of the world refuses to see, or hear, the multiple recordings of Israeli troops interacting with administrators in these hospitals in order to provide fuel, safe evacuation of actual patients, as well as providing incubators, baby formula, and other medical equipment in order to do so, all to protect the patients sheltering the Hamas terrorists.

And it’s unthinkable that the best evidence of Israel doing the best job possible to eliminate terrorists without unnecessary civilian casualties is the fact that these hospital buildings are still standing, and they were not completely blown up with all of their bunkers the day after the war began.

By the time you read this, much of the story may be over, or Israel may be engaged in one of the bloodiest battles ever. Likely, either way, the world condemnation will neither be over nor much less bloody, as in a blood libel against Israel. Like a cat, the lies of the Hamas controlled Gazan “Health Ministry” seem to have nine lives, as they are broadcast and rebroadcast without much if any fact checking or credibility of the source itself. To the extent that the Hamas terrorists, have entrenched themselves with in the hospitals, there’s no reason to believe that the terrorists are not masking themselves as doctors and patients, hiding in plain sight but armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and suicide vests.

There’s also no reason to believe that much of the hospital compounds in which Israel has entered in order to combat the terrorists, at great risk to their own lives, are booby trapped in order to bring down the hospitals on top of the Israeli troops, with no regard for the patients inside that Israel is striving to protect.

I pray that I’m wrong, and I pray that Israel’s intelligence and tactical military strategies also include a painstaking search in every room, in every corridor for such threats.

It’s unthinkable to imagine, but not unthinkable based on the reality, the evil, the inhuman cruelty that we have witnessed on and since Oct. 7. In reality, given the evil that the Islamic terrorist personify, that they would bring down an entire hospital in order to kill a few or a few dozen Israeli troops and it’s painful to imagine that if and when that were to happen, the world will blame Israel for the death of the patients rather than the actual perpetrators who are using the patients as human shields.

The unthinkable is our reality. The illegal and evil abuse of Gaza hospitals and patients by Hamas is sickening. We must not close our eyes to this, and as long as anyone questions or doubts these very vivid facts, we must continue to share the painful reality in every and any forum possible.