Sundown Over Gethsemane

Night comes to the Holy Land.

Garden of Gethsemane, Sir David Wilkie, 1841.

This is the day Christians commemorate the story of someone who ate his final meal in the garden of Gethsemane, then was arrested and executed for preaching the wrong kind of faith. After that, they say, this victim of state violence rose from the dead.

They also tell us Jesus was a healer.

Speaking of healers: Israel has systematically bombed hospitals in Gaza while targeting doctors for arrest, beatings, imprisonment, and death. From the British newspaper The Independent:

“Palestinian doctors working in Gaza have accused Israeli forces of using electric shocks, turning medics into human shields and repeatedly torturing them after arresting them without charge ... [one doctor] said the Israeli military raided the facility on two different occasions, arresting dozens of medical workers as they treated injured Palestinians.”

A recent investigation confirmed that Israel murdered 15 medics—healers—and other unarmed aid workers, buried their bodies in an unmarked grave, and lied about it. “Our findings contradict not only Israel's initial account of the attack,” writes Great Britain’s Sky News, “but its subsequent accounts as well.”

They didn’t know there was video.

Medical personnel in Gaza are constantly traumatized by a routine that includes watching children die every day—children they could have saved if Israel weren’t blocking the medical supplies they need. From the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

“Nasser Hospital's emergency room in the southern Gaza Strip has a special area where children are allowed to die quietly in the presence of their families. Known as the ‘dead children's area,’ it's also for children whose rescue would require resources beyond the hospital's means.”

The dead children’s area …

“The options for health care—especially emergency care—for the people of Gaza are reduced to zero,” said a UN expert.

Sundown will also mark the end of Passover. Jewish scripture says the firstborn children of the oppressors were taken by the angel of death, but the children of the oppressed were spared. What better reason to celebrate than an act of mercy toward children?

On March 4, the Director-General of the World Health Organization visited Gaza and reported “children dying of starvation” amid “severe levels of malnutrition.” Israel began blocking all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza on March 2, a mere two days before that visit. The situation is undoubtedly worse now—much, much worse.

The official death toll in Gaza is based on reports from hospitals and morgues. Since virtually all those institutions have been destroyed, the reported figure of more than 50,000 is undoubtedly a severe undercount.

How many people have actually died in Gaza? Last July, a study in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the true death toll to be 186,000. Today, the same methodology would indicate that there have been around 250,000 deaths. That’s roughly one out of every ten people in Gaza—and that’s not counting the orphans, the maimed children, or other casualties.

Based on Gaza’s demographics, 40 percent of the dead are likely to be children. That comes to 100,000 fatalities.

100,000 dead kids.

As we prepared to celebrate in the United States, the leaders of twelve aid organizations issued a letter—really, more of a desperate plea. It said, in part, “with widespread and indiscriminate bombing making it extremely dangerous to move around ... famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts of Gaza.”

“Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point,” the letter added.

The West Bank is also under siege. In January, an AJ Labs investigation found that there have been more than 1,800 recorded acts of violence against Palestinians by settlers since October 2023. That’s an average of roughly four acts of settler violence every day—many aided by Israeli soldiers bearing American arms.

The investigation also found that “at least 870 Palestinians, including 177 children, have been killed and more than 6,700 wounded in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers across the West Bank.”

The garden of Gethsemane is a ten-minute drive from Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families are systemically being forced from their homes in open violation of international law. Palestinian Christians are subjected to the same abuse and oppression heaped on their Muslim brethren. That’s everyday life in the place we call “the Holy Land.”

The holidays will end, but tomorrow will be no different. The sun will set blood-red over Gethsemane. And the angel of death—made now of bullets and propellers, cameras and circuits and code—will cross the land once more, passing over no one.