Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, joined US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on a visit to a US-backed aid operation in Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said two hundred trucks of aid were distributed by the UN and other organizations on Thursday, with hundreds more waiting to be picked up from border crossings inside Gaza. Food is now being airdropped into Gaza by six countries, including for the first time France, Spain, and Germany.
By way of background: In March, after a cease-fire with Hamas fell apart, Israel stopped the entry of all goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip in a move aimed at pressuring the terror group to accept a new proposal to extend the ceasefire. Many in Israel also viewed the agency that had been aiding the Palestinians as complicit with Hamas and terrorism.
However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, “Photos of starving children have proved too much for most of Israel’s leaders to withstand.” As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “reportedly bypassed extremists in his cabinet to expand opportunities for the delivery of vital supplies.”
I must begin by stating the obvious: the suffering of even a single person grieves the heart of the God who made them. But there’s more to this tragic story in Gaza, a factor that is relevant to the way we see all conflicts and all peoples today.
“Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve”
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is a native of Gaza and a political analyst. His recent article in the Atlantic is titled, “Hamas Wants Gaza to Starve.” He writes:
Despite the surge of hundreds of trucks into Gaza over the past four days, very few supplies have made it into warehouses to be distributed to the population. Aid shipments are being seized by a combination of desperate civilians, lawless gangs, clan-affiliated thugs, and merchants of death. Chaos and apocalyptic scenery are the norm, not the exception.
Alkhatib reports that he has spoken with “dozens of Gazans who are furious about what is unfolding around them. . . . But their anger is directed primarily at Hamas, which they hold responsible for putting the people of Gaza in this position, and for its continued refusal to end the war that it started.”
In his analysis,
Hamas actually wants a famine in Gaza. Producing mass death from hunger is the group’s final play, its last hope for ending the war in a way that advances its goals. Hamas has benefited from Israel’s decision to use food as a lever against the terror group because the catastrophic conditions for civilians have generated an international outcry, which is worsening Israel’s global standing and forcing it to reverse course.
Since its horrific October 7 invasion that started Gaza on this road to ruin, Hamas has refused to return all its hostages unless Israel withdraws its forces and allows the terrorist group to remain in power. This, of course, would only prepare the way for another Oct. 7. Now Hamas is using the starvation of its own people to leverage its power as a platform for continued attacks on the Jewish state.
Even the Arab world recognizes Hamas for the terrorists they are. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have called for the group to disband and give up power, joining fourteen other countries in signing a statement that condemned the Oct. 7 attacks.
Why Hitler wanted to eradicate the Jews
Over my many travels to Israel, I have met some Israelis who view a Palestinian state as an existential threat to the Jewish people. They fear that if the Palestinians have their own nation, some will use it as a platform from which to attack Israel. Some, therefore, support Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and view the subjugation of the Palestinian people as necessary for the security of Israel.
For example, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich want Israel to block all humanitarian aid into Gaza as long as Hamas holds Israeli hostages, whatever the consequences for the Palestinians there. They have called for the war to continue and seek the “voluntary” migration of Gaza’s population of two million Palestinians.
Hamas, by contrast, exists for the purpose of destroying Israel and the Jewish people. They are convinced that Jews are hostis humani generis, the enemies of humankind itself. Nor do they care for the people they are supposed to be serving, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and as pawns in their quest for power. The son of a founding Hamas leader said, “They don’t care for the Palestinian people. They do not regard human life.”
Viewing humans as a collective rather than as individuals is at the heart of this conflict.
For historical precedent, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Barton Swaim points to historian Thomas Weber, who notes that Hitler wanted to eradicate the Jews not because he thought individual Jews were evil. Rather, it was “because of their racial destiny or racial determination, which made it impossible for them to act in any other ways than parasitically.”
Why my father fought the Japanese
Reducing people to their race or the nation they occupy greatly simplifies geopolitics. We can then support or reject them as a collective without the hard work of understanding their individual needs, stories, and merits.
This is tragically necessary in war, of course. My father fought individual Japanese soldiers in World War II just as his father fought individual German soldiers in World War I, both as a means to defending America from Japan and Germany.
But whenever we can, however we can, we must resist the human tendency to devalue other humans by categorizing them as anything other than individuals made in the image of their Maker (Genesis 1:27). If you have children, you love each of them as if there were only one of them. Their Heavenly Father does the same.
So, please join me in praying for Palestinians who are suffering as a result of Hamas’s invasion of Israel and Israel’s response to it. Pray for the hostages still being held in horrific conditions by the terrorists. Pray for this tragic conflict to end in a way that protects both Palestinians and Israelis from future violence.
And pray for all Palestinians and all Israelis to meet the One who died for them and whose love will give them the peace their hearts seek most.
How a Satanist became a Christian
I once heard a former Satanist tell how he came to faith in Christ. He hated Christians with a passion, one in particular. But nothing he did could dissuade this believer from continuing to love him, pray for him, and seek to serve him.
At one point, the Satanist became so angry that he struck the Christian, knocking him to the ground. The believer touched his hand to his bleeding face, held it up to his persecutor, and said, “If you’re good enough for Jesus, you’re good enough for me.”
That’s the gospel. Who will hear—and see—it from you today?
Quote for the day:
“When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life radiating that love.” —Mother Teresa
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