This is an adapted excerpt from the April 13 episode of “Ayman.”
As America and the world’s attention continues to be fixed on Donald Trump and his tariffs, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, and the people in it, continues. On Sunday, Israel struck Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, the last major hospital providing care in northern Gaza. One patient, a girl, died during the evacuation because staff were unable to provide urgent care, according to Gaza’s ministry of health, reported NPR.
Israel said the strike targeted a Hamas “command and control center” within the hospital and that “steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians or to the hospital compound, including issuing advanced warnings in the area of the terror infrastructure, the use of precise munitions, and aerial surveillance.” Israeli officials have yet to provide any evidence of a command center located inside the hospital.
Israel has now acknowledged those inaccuracies and promised a “thorough examination,” but that’s like an arsonist promising to investigate the fire.
Remember, this is the same hospital that caused so much controversy when it was bombed on Oct. 17, 2023, with both sides trading blame on who actually bombed it. At the time, the Israeli military said it couldn’t be them because, as a spokesperson said, “Hospitals are not a target; we would never target a hospital.” Now, they’re bombing hospitals out in the open and taking credit for it.
A United Nations report from late last year found that between October 2023 and June 2024, Israel carried out at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, killing many doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians.
How did we get to this point? How is it that something that was considered an atrocity 18 months ago, something that captured the world’s attention and that Israel had to strongly deny, is now so common that it barely gets media attention?
Last month, a funeral service was held for 15 medics and emergency responders who the U.N. said were killed by Israeli troops. Their bodies were found buried in a mass grave, apparently plowed over by Israeli military bulldozers, according to the U.N. The Palestinian Red Crescent said their vehicles were clearly marked and accused Israel of killing them “in cold blood.”
This was strongly denied by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. He said the military did not “randomly attack an ambulance” but that “several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward Israeli military troops without headlights or emergency signals,” prompting them to shoot.
The Israeli military repeatedly told this version of the story to the international press until new footage was discovered from the cellphone of one of the dead medics, directly contradicting Israel’s explanation, a development first reported by The New York Times.
Contrary to Israel’s claims, the video shows the medics driving slowly with their emergency vehicles’ lights flashing, logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come under fire earlier. The medics do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner. Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire and gunshots continue for more than five minutes. The owner of the phone is then heard reciting his final prayers, asking for acceptance from God and asking for forgiveness from his mother for choosing this profession.
Israel has now acknowledged inaccuracies in its original story and promised a “thorough examination,” but that’s like an arsonist promising to investigate the fire.
Earlier this month, Israeli carried out an air attack on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. At least 27 people, some of them children, were killed in the strike and 70 others were injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israel military claimed that that they had destroyed what they called a Hamas “command and control center” and killed numerous militants. Haven’t we heard that explanation before?
The U.N. says Israel has killed more than 100 civil defense workers and more than 1,000 health workers since Hamas‘ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. According to UNICEF, no food, fuel, medicine or other essentials have been allowed into Gaza since March 2, the longest period of aid blockage since the start of the war. The agency also estimates that a daily average of around 100 children have been killed or injured every day in the region since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended the ceasefire in March. The World Food Program recently said that all bakeries in Gaza have shut down due to a severe lack of fuel and flour.
The Israeli military has repeatedly said it does “everything possible to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.” On March 3, Netanyahu said he cut off aid to Gaza “because Hamas steals the supplies.”
This normalization brings to mind Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil.”
In a sign of how normalized this has all become, Netanyahu was welcomed back at the White House last week. Whether it’s Democrats or Republicans in charge, it’s business as usual.
This normalization brings to mind Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil,” which she developed while covering the trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. The banality of evil is the idea that evil does not have the villainous appearance we might think it does. It doesn’t have horns and a tail. Rather, evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time. It becomes commonplace and slowly becomes acceptable. Ordinary people, going about their everyday lives, then become complicit actors in the system that is perpetuating evil.
While Arendt developed this idea while studying Nazi Germany, she argued that this systemic oppression and the slow normalization of evil can occur anywhere. And well, it seems to be staring us in the face right now.
