Opinion | Hamas Starved and Abused People. Israel Has, Too

A Palestinian man pushes a child on a wheelchair amidst the rubble of buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Sunday.Credit: Hatem Khaled / Reuters

On the Saturday before last, we looked on in shock at the sight of the three Israeli hostages Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben-Ami, who was released from Hamas captivity. The extreme gauntness resulting from long-term starvation and the pale faces that disclose the harsh conditions under which the three were held painfully jolted our collective memory. Three civilians who were abducted from their homes and returned as "Musselmen," gaunt, weak, and pale. It makes your stomach turn.

Starvation as a method, as a practice, as a way of breaking the body and soul being adopted by Hamas, is intolerable. The appearance of the three men was more than infuriating, more than painful. It isn't only an act that violates international law – it violates that elusive thing called humaneness.

Israeli hostages Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levy and Eli Sharabi on a stage before being handed over by Hamas to a Red Cross team in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP

They starved people, and so did we. They denied them medicine, and so did we.
They abuse soldiers, and we abuse security prisoners.
They are cruel, and so are we.
When we swore "never again," – the intention wasn't only "never again”
to our people but "never again" to anyone.

Everyone felt the shock. There was nobody who wasn't heartbroken. But the truth is that Hamas is not the only political leadership that has behaved in recent months with inconceivable cruelty; not only has Hamas forces dispassionately denied food and water to innocent people.

Harsh pictures of hungry, emaciated Gazan children, fighting over every morsel of food, water, and assistance, have been published in the foreign media but barely penetrated the social and commercial media in Israel. That's why the shock on Saturday was so justified, but at the same time, also grating. To me at least.

During the months of war in Gaza, 345,000 residents of the Gaza Strip, including women, children and the elderly, have suffered from a very high degree of acute hunger. About 90 percent of the residents of the Strip suffered from food insecurity due to the war conditions and a shortage of humanitarian assistance, some of which didn't enter the Strip and some of which may have entered but didn't reach those in need, and mainly not the mouths of children.

It's natural to be shocked by what's done to our friends, to individuals among our people, to those in the group with which we identify, and it's good that finally, awareness of the real condition of the hostages is no longer being denied. Maybe in that way a worse fate will be avoided for the hostages still in captivity. It's human to want the best for ourselves.

Palestinians sit amidst the rubble of buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Sunday.Credit: Hatem Khaled / Reuters

But it's impossible to call the accursed Hamas "Nazis," "beasts," "subhuman" and other names without an honest and courageous look at our behavior, without cringing in shame and guilt.

They starved people, and so did we. They denied them medicine, and so did we. They abuse soldiers, and we abuse security prisoners. They are cruel, and so are we. When we swore "never again" – the intention wasn't only "never again" to our people, but "never again" to anyone.

It's impossible to be outraged about starvation as a method and policy only when it's directed against us and our people. If you're outraged about starvation, you must also be outraged when you're the ones starving others. That's a basic requirement of humaneness, conscience, and morality. The most elementary thing of all: What's forbidden to others is also forbidden to us.

There's no need for even a single gram of empathy for the other side; although that's also a humane imperative that should be adopted. Just as the law is the same for everyone, so is morality. If systematic and deliberate starvation is shocking and therefore forbidden, it's always forbidden. To us too.

Our heart is permitted to go wherever it wants. It has the right to break in a subjective, partial, tendentious, and selfish manner. But what the heart is permitted to do isn't permitted to the rest of our component parts as complete human beings with integrity, a conscience, common sense, and an obligation even to someone who isn't one of us. This accursed war must end with all the hostages at home and with the start of a serious discussion, without absurd fantasies about the future of the Gaza Strip. There is no other discussion. There is no other mission.

Moria Shlomot is the executive director of Parents Against Child Detention.