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Israel-Gaza: What About the Babies? Yeah, What About Them?

Israel-Gaza: What About the Babies? Yeah, What About Them?

Last updated on: May 14, 2025 at 12:54 am by Rob Dalrymple

Israel-Gaza: What About the Babies? Yeah, What About Them? 2025-05-13T08:32:54-08:00 Rob Dalrymple

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Gaza girl balloons

Children are children everywhere. And they deserve food, an education, and the opportunity for hope. Image by hosny salah from Pixabay

Today (May 14), Israelis and most Jews around the world celebrate the 77th birthday of the nation of Israel.

Tomorrow (May 15), Palestinians will commemorate the Nakba (“catastrophe”).

What is a time of celebration for Israelis and many Jews around the world is a time of remembrance for Palestinians of the loss of land (over 500 Arab villages were either depopulated in order to be inhabited by Israelis or destroyed in 1948) and the expulsion of 750,000 Arabs.

When it comes to the present crisis in Gaza, some Christians refuse to address Netanyahu and his extreme right cabinet’s effort to starve the people of Gaza and the IDF’s continued bombing campaign in Gaza because of the “babies that Hamas killed” on October 7.

And, I get it.

Hamas’ actions on October 7 (2023) were damnable. My reply, however, is “What about the babies in Gaza?”

Killing children is wrong! Period. It doesn’t matter if the children are Jewish, Palestinian, Russian, or American.

It is wrong when Hamas does it. And it is wrong when Israel does it!

Israel must stop. Hamas must stop. And the US must stop supporting it.

NOW.

And the Church must stop encouraging violence and terror, regardless of who inflicts it.

Israel’s continued blockade of Gaza is inhumane, and any support or attempted justification of it is criminal.

To be unwilling to address Israel’s ongoing assault against Gaza because of what Hamas did to the Israelis is to have an unequal ethic that condemns injustice when one party inflicts it but somehow justifies it when the other does so. This is an abomination!

Whenever we discuss this issue of Israel-Palestine, we seemingly have to discuss “both sides”—though in the early days of the present war on Gaza, Russell Moore at Christianity Today actually suggested, “Bothsideism . . . Is a Moral Failure.”

And, again, I get it.

There are good people on both sides. Innocent people. Kind people. People like us—moms and dads who want to raise their kids in peace. Parents want their kids to go to school and to have a future.

But the fact is that this conflict is not being waged by two equal powers.

On one side is one of the most powerful, nuclear-armed military in the world, backed by billions of dollars of weapons, air power, and intelligence capabilities from the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.

On the other side is a non-state militant group operating in the occupied, blockaded, and impoverished Gaza Strip, with limited weapons, no air force or navy, and far fewer resources. Indeed, smuggled in makeshift weaponry from Iran and Hezbollah has provided Hamas with some short and long-range homemade rockets, light weapons, drones, and anti-tank missiles.

This is not a war between two equal powers; it is a conflict between a nuclear-armed state and a primarily civilian population under occupation and siege.

Israel’s continued blockade: Collective Punishment? Genocide?

Every child matters because everyone matters. The present humanitarian crisis in Gaza is beyond imagination. OXFAM warns that the present blockade on Gaza is “Catastrophic.”

On March 2, 2025, Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas and imposed a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. Consequently, in addition to the 15,000+ children that have been killed as a result of the siege of Gaza, UNICEF reports that, as of May 12, 2025, an additional 71,000+ children and 17,000 mothers are suffering from acute malnutrition. Approximately 1.95 million of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents currently face severe food deprivation.

This means, in technical terms, that practically every person in the Gaza Strip is presently experiencing “acute food insecurity” at crisis level or worse. Of these, 250,000 are experiencing “catastrophic” conditions, and 925,000 others are at “emergency level” conditions.

Therefore, without immediate intervention, there will be a full-scale famine in the Gaza Strip.

Long-term effects of famine and trauma

The trauma experienced by the 2.3 million residents of Gaza is unimaginable. One Gazan recently stated, “We are not living in Gaza, we are enduring.”

Though it is not too late to save lives, we must reckon with the fact that even the early stages of famine will have long-term consequences, including physical, cognitive, socio-economic, and mental health.

Abiding Trauma

Reports are that almost every child in Gaza is experiencing symptoms of acute trauma, including night terrors, bed-wetting, and anxiety. Compounding the problem is that there are essentially no functioning mental health services left in the Gaza Strip.

The long-term physical effects of famine include stunted growth, weakened immune systems, and organ damage, among others. Cognitive effects include impaired brain development, which affects one’s educational efforts and often results in decreased economic abilities throughout one’s life. Mental health effects are hard to express. There is no question that the trauma and PTSD that result from experiencing the perpetual bombing and the death of family members, friends, and others, as well as the witnessing of starvation, inevitably lead to long-term psychological trauma.

Imagine the fear and tremors a child from Gaza will experience for the rest of their lives at the sound of a plane flying overhead, or the “bang” that results when someone drops something in a room next door.

Generational effects

Then there are the multigenerational effects. It is now known that malnutrition, especially prolonged malnutrition, can lead to genetic changes that may be handed on to the next generation.

Children of famine survivors will also be directly impacted by many of the effects that their parents have experienced. They are more likely to be raised in conditions of poverty and will experience all the effects that this entails. And they will continue to pass this trauma on to their children.

Destruction of the healthcare system

If all of this were not bad enough, Israel’s sustained assault on Gaza has virtually annihilated the entire healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. Conditions of Gaza’s healthcare are “beyond description.” Only a few hospitals in Gaza are even partially functioning.

For the past 19+ months there have been repeated reports of amputations—some of which have been done simply because there were no available antibiotics—and C-sections performed without anesthesia, as well as children with cancer have died because they were denied medical treatment, and others have died from treatable injuries simply because of the unavailability of care.

Gaza infrastructure decimated

Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza, water has been virtually unavailable. Over 95% of Gaza’s water remains undrinkable. Many families are forced to drink contaminated or salty water. With the infrastructure destroyed, raw sewage is flooding residential areas. The spread of measles, hepatitis, cholera, diarrhea, and other respiratory infections is out of control.

Economic Destruction

Most of Gaza’s businesses have been completely destroyed. Large swaths of the farmlands have been bombed and bulldozed. Most of the livestock have been killed.

What about the West Bank?

All of this is to say nothing about conditions in the West Bank.

Conditions in the West Bank have been described to me as “unlivable.” Mass expulsions, killings, and detentions of Palestinians have become the norm. Hundreds more roadblocks have arisen throughout the West Bank, making travel even within a city difficult. One resident of Bethlehem recently noted that because of the new roadblocks (over 80 have arisen in Bethlehem alone), what used to take 4 mins to take her child to school now takes an hour.

The goal of such roadblocks is to make life unbearable for the Palestinians so that they will leave.

NB: It should be noted that Hamas is not in power in the West Bank. Thus, the idea that Israel’s assault in Gaza is justified by the need to eliminate Hamas doesn’t account for Israel’s actions in the West Bank.

It may well be that such moves are intended to provoke the Palestinians to violence in order that the IDF may have a pretense—as if they needed one—for a violent response. Of course, such an assertion before October 7, 2023, would have the air of an anti-Israeli prejudice. Since October 7, however, it appears to be well-founded.

What must we do now?

Note: I am not asking, “What can we do?”

NB: We will address this question with Prof Ross Wagner on a livestream on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, at 2:00 PST / 5:00 EST. This link will work even after the event has been completed.

Here are some action steps to get started.

First, we must recognize the severity of the situation and demand that our government facilitate an end to this atrocity. We can contact our governing officials, write op-eds in our local papers, and participate in boycotts. There is a boycott Chevron day set for May 21, 2025.

NB: I highly recommend you subscribe to the CMEP newsletter and action alerts at CMEP.org/action-alerts/. CMEP does a fantastic job of sending user-friendly alerts that enable you to contact your representative when important measures arise with a few clicks.

Second, become more informed. Under normal circumstances, this would be the first step. But people are dying, and we cannot wait to learn more before we contact our officials.

You can also follow NEME.Network (for which I am on the Leadership Team) for a variety of resources to get more informed.

Also, the Telos Group provides weekly updates with lots of good info and resources.

Third, tell others! We cannot be silent. What will we say when our kids and grandkids ask, “Did you know about Gaza?” and “What did you do?” I doubt that “Well, I just didn’t know enough” will be a sufficient answer for them.

Fourth, community gatherings should be held to discuss the issues. Make sure the discussions aren’t one-sided—i.e., side A is good and side B is bad, but that they maintain a Christlike love for everyone. Gather and watch No Other Land and other such documentaries. Then discuss. Then, discern how to get involved in advocating for change.

NB: NEME.network/resources has a long list of recommended resources. Just Vision also has a long list of videos and movies (long and short).

Fifth, pray. I put this last intentionally. It is always time to pray, but the time for prayer alone has long passed. Actions must accompany our prayers.

What side are you on?

In closing, it is good to be reminded of the encounter in the book of Joshua:

“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us or for our adversaries?’ He said, ‘No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord’” (Josh 5:13-14).

It is important to note that the word translated as “No” in Josh 5:14 may well be read as “Neither” (see NIV).

This captures our stance well! We are not on any side. Yet, we are on every side. “Lord, have mercy.”

I am sure that I have been and will be accused of siding with the Palestinians. My response is that the Palestinians are indeed suffering far more than the Israelis. In addition, the suffering of the Palestinians is in large part the result of American Christian support for Israel. So, yes, I am calling out for justice for the Palestinians more than I call out for justice for Israelis. But I am not calling out for one side only.

It is time for this to end and for the Church to stop supporting one side only. As MLK said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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About Rob Dalrymple

Rob Dalrymple is married to his wife Toni and is the father of four fabulous children, and two grandchildren. He has been teaching and pastoring for over 34 years at colleges, seminaries, and the local church. He has a PhD in biblical interpretation. He is the author of six books (including Follow the Lamb: A Guide to Reading, Understanding, and Applying the Book of Revelation & Understanding the New Testament and the End Times: Why it Matters) as well as numerous articles and other publications. His commentary on the book of Revelation titled, “Revelation: a Love Story” (Cascade Books, July 2024) is making waves in the scholarly world. His latest book, Land of Contention: Biblical Narratives and the Struggle for the Holy Land discussed the role of the church in peacemaking in the light of the war on Gaza and the struggles in the West Bank and is available now on Amazon or wherever you get your books (hopefully somewhere besides Amazon!) You can read more about the author here.

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