But why did they bury the ambulances?
By Tom Zandman • Translated by Sol Salbe
For those who somehow haven’t heard it yet, IDF soldiers executed 15 medical, rescue and aid workers. Another drop in Gaza’s sea of blood, only this time they were found in a mass grave, still in their paramedic/first responders uniforms, some handcuffed, some shot in the chest or head — along with the ambulances themselves.
And I ask myself:
If you’ve lost your humanity to such an extent that you find yourself shooting at ambulances and fire trucks, pulling out those who are still alive, handcuffing them and executing them by shooting them in the chest or head — why would you bother burying them? And why bury the ambulances?
Not out of respect for the deceased, that’s for sure. So just to hide.
But to hide from whom, and why?
Because they cared about the organisations that sent them? Yeah, sure. The IDF really cares what think of the Palestinian Red Crescent employees think of it. Same goes for the United Nations. What will they do, issue a condemnation? Those antisemites.
Because of the media? Well. The international media, which has exhausted the Gaza story since the slaughter became repetitive and moved on to Trump’s daily trolling? Or the Israeli media, which copy-pastes the IDF Spokesperson’s statements, which explained that the ambulances “moved suspiciously”?
Because of your commanders? For sure. Those who approve the “mosquito procedure” [using Palestinian hostages for dangerous missions] and the killing zones. They let you film yourself burning houses and blowing up water reservoirs and spoofing the death marches of the refugees, and then upload everything to TikTok. What do you have to hide from them?
Because of the Israelis? Oh yes, Absolutely. Our uninvolved people will back you up before you even think of an excuse yourself, and even if you say that you just felt like killing Arabs, they will say “great, they deserved it”.
So what goes through your head, after you’ve executed the survivors — or even before, when you handcuff them ahead of the bullet to the head — and you say to your friend, “Call the bulldozer to dig here for a moment”? Who do you have left to hide from?
Only from yourself. Not from anyone else.
But why would you hide it from yourself?
Because something in your gut tells you that what you did should be covered-up. Despite all the “there’s no one uninvolved in Gaza”. Despite the “everyone is Hamas,” the “Palestini-nazis.” Despite October 7. Despite the dehumanisation that has been inculcated into since you were age zero; Despite the numbness you have developed to the killing and destruction and suffering of others over a trillion days of reserve duty; Despite the endless stay on Planet Gaza that no longer resembles the place where humans ever lived; Despite the absolute confidence that no one will hold you accountable; Despite your god-like power over the life and death of the Gazans; Even though everyone is doing it; Even though you may have already done worse things than that — despite all this, You know.
Even if the whole world tells you that it is permissible, you know that what you have done isn’t, it’s wrong. It — what you did — isn’t for TikTok. It’s for a bulldozer. So you call on the bulldozer to dig a hole here for a moment, to hide what you did from you. As for the past year and a half, you, and everyone behind you, have been trying to hide. We are turning the entire State of Israel, with its soldiers, judges, journalists and citizens, into one giant bulldozer that will bury all of Gaza and hide from us what we have done.
The English phrase “crime against humanity” is usually translated into Hebrew literally. But perhaps it would have been more accurate to render it as “crime against being human.” Because in the name of your battered humanness you’ve called the bulldozer to dig a hole here for a moment, to try to hide the crime you committed against your humanness, and it is that humanness that you tried to bury.
But it doesn’t work. Your human core is still there, and despite everything that core was told and everything it went through, it still differentiates between good and evil. And it says to you: It’s evil. You did something wrong. And its voice, as tiny and weak as it was, can still skip over all the lies you thought could be piled on top it and still permeates outwards through the mountain of sand and the bodies you tried to pile up on top of it.
No matter how much they tried to turn you into a monster, you remained a human being. And no matter how much you tried to turn the fifteen people you killed into monsters, they remained human beings. You. And the humanness of all of you is buried there in the sands of Gaza, next to the crushed ambulances, waiting to be located as well. You humanness didn’t die because it cannot be killed, and it wouldn’t be silent because it couldn’t be silenced. It will keep reminding you that they were human beings, and so are you.
Call as many bulldozers as you want, it won’t stop. Until you listen.
Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
