This past week, I was with a small group of friends (on a boat, on a lake, in December in 75 degree weather, outside of ATL). All of us Jewish but from different kinds of upbringing and current way of living Jewishly; all of us left-leaning in our American political lens, although not 100% aligned on all things; and all of us between the ages of 40-65. Somehow, the conversation at one point turned to what Israel could have done differently in the immediate days after 10/7 to minimize civilian suffering. Several of us shared that we each had some ideas that we had ruminated on as the news was breaking and while they were far from identical, they all had the same meta question: What could have happened if the world had decided to act together?
Not perfectly. Not heroically. Just responsibly.
In the days immediately following October 7, there was a brief and fragile window when shock had not yet hardened into inevitability, when countries all over the world were displaying Israeli flags on their most prominent monuments, when the world’s citizens were collectively mourning Israeli lives. In that window, Israel — and the global community — still had choices. One of them was this: to pursue a narrowly defined, internationally supported humanitarian evacuation of Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians: children, elders, pregnant and nursing women, and the infirm. And to do so before large-scale ground operations began.
This was never about “emptying Gaza.” It was about buying time for human life.
This idea is not hindsight
I feel like I want to share what I was thinking of (and will explain later why I still wanted to share this even 2+ years later). It also matters to say this plainly: this idea did not come to me years later, after outcomes were known and positions entrenched. It came to me within the first 48 hours after the news broke. In complicated reflections in those first horrific days, my same instinct surfaced again and again: get the most vulnerable civilians out before the fighting begins. Evacuate children, elders, pregnant and nursing women, hospital patients—into Israeli desert camps, into Egypt, into Jordan, anywhere that could buy time and preserve life before the IDF moved in force. (which I always defended their right to do!)
These thoughts were shaped not by naïveté, but by painful familiarity—with Hamas’s long-documented behavior: its theft and diversion of aid, its embedding of weapons and fighters in civilian infrastructure, and its systematic exploitation of innocent people as shields (see, for example, documentation by the UN itself on weapons found in UN facilities in Gaza.)
When my friends this past week shared our similar conclusions, driven by our values of saving innocent people and our knowledge of the depth of corruption by Hamas and other Gaza jihadi groups, it confirmed by thinking that it should not have been a conceptual leap for global leaders with vastly greater intelligence, humanitarian infrastructure, and diplomatic reach. This was not a failure of imagination at the margins; it was a failure of will at the center.
A request that would have changed the conversation
Had Israel openly asked for global cooperation it would have done more than create logistical pathways. It would have made something unmistakably clear: that civilian life mattered, and that harm to an excessive amount of innocents was not an acceptable byproduct of war.
Such a request would also have forced an early reckoning. Countries would have had to decide — publicly — whether they were willing to help save civilians or whether they would refuse. Responsibility for civilian outcomes would no longer have been rhetorically concentrated in a single place.
Silence would have become a choice.
Refusal would have become visible.
Shared responsibility would have been unavoidable.
That kind of transparency reshapes narratives before they harden.
How it could have worked
Cruise ships and large military vessels already exist for one essential purpose: sustaining large numbers of people safely. They have beds, kitchens, potable water systems, sanitation, climate control, technology, and medical facilities. They are floating cities used routinely for disaster response and humanitarian relief.
In this framework, ships would not have been destinations. They would have been staging sanctuaries. From there, evacuees could have been transferred to temporary housing (hotels, modular housing, repurposed campuses) across multiple countries that agreed in advance to time-limited hosting with explicit guarantees of repatriation once active combat subsided.
[Photo: MONALISA 2.0 – MASS EVACUATION IN PORTS PILOT EXERCISE]
No single country would absorb the burden. No open-ended displacement would be normalized. The structure would have been temporary, distributed, and internationally monitored.
The goal evacuation would have to be accomplished through prioritization with integrity: beginning with hospitals, senior homes, neonatal units and mothers, dialysis and cancer treatment patients, and others for whom bombardment and infrastructure collapse are existential threats.
Security without dehumanization
Security concerns are real. They always are. But refusing humanitarian corridors does not eliminate risk, it displaces it and in fact amplifies it.
Ships, ports, and host countries already know how to screen entrants. Metal detectors, X-ray scanners, controlled manifests, biometric checks, and layered supervision are standard practice in airports, refugee processing centers, and humanitarian evacuations worldwide. Screening does not require suspicion of everyone; it requires process.
A maritime evacuation would have created:
- controlled entry points
- verification before boarding
- supervision during transport
- monitored onward movement to host facilities
This would have been more secure, not less, than unmanaged displacement amid active conflict. And critically, it would have separated civilians from combatants (denying armed groups the ability to deliberately blur that line).
Blaming Hamas without erasing Gazans
It bears repeating, because this is an honest conversation, that must name what has long been documented: Hamas has repeatedly stolen and diverted humanitarian aid , embedded weapons in schools and homes, used hospitals and mosques for military purposes, and exploited civilian infrastructure to shield fighters. Everyone knew this. This wasn’t new information that emerged in the days after 10/7. It’s been documented and reported by numerous NGOs and other human rights organizations for a long ti8me.
Civilians have been used—systematically—as human shields.
Naming this reality is not an indictment of Gazans. It is a refusal to allow their suffering to be instrumentalized.
A structured evacuation of vulnerable civilians would have undercut Hamas’s strategy, not rewarded it. It would have reduced the civilian population Hamas hides behind, narrowed the space for manipulation, and made it harder to collapse all suffering into a single, distorted accusation that erases the role of those who intentionally embed war inside civilian life.
Where the United Nations failed repeatedly.
For years.
It is also impossible to ignore the role the United Nations played — or failed to play — long before October 7. For years, Israel warned the UN and donor governments that UNRWA’s neutrality in Gaza was compromised. Those warnings were repeatedly dismissed as political deflection.
Yet evidence accumulated: weapons stored in or near UNRWA schools (UN statements above), staff members with ties to Hamas, and educational materials that promoted incitement rather than coexistence (see independent reviews such as IMPACT-se: https://www.impact-se.org/unrwa/). After October 7, multiple governments suspended funding following allegations that UNRWA employees participated in or assisted Hamas activities.
These revelations were not shocking. They reflected years of institutional complacency and an adversarial posture the UN has had towards Israel that treated warnings as propaganda rather than risk assessment.
Had the UN upheld its mandate of neutrality and accountability, it should have been the natural body to lead (in partnership with Israel, not against it) a rapid humanitarian evacuation of vulnerable civilians. Instead, its credibility deficit made such cooperation politically untenable, leaving a vacuum where moral leadership should have stood.
A message beyond Gaza
Such a plan would also have sent a powerful signal to Hamas, to Iranian-backed militias, and to their patrons, that atrocities, hostage-taking, and the exploitation of civilians would not be tolerated or rewarded.
That message matters because Hamas leaders themselves have framed October 7 as a model, not an anomaly. Hamas Political Bureau member Ghazi Hamad stated openly, “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The al-Aqsa Deluge is just the first time.”
Iranian leadership and IRGC commanders have likewise celebrated the attack’s impact and emphasized the continued readiness of allied militias within what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance.”
This rhetoric is not abstract. It signals intent, repetition, and a worldview in which civilian suffering is instrumentalized rather than protected.
Why this mattered for the narrative
Much of the world’s outrage has been fueled not only by images of suffering, but by the perception that no alternative was even attempted. That vacuum became a canvas for accusation.
Had there been a visible, multinational effort which was presented early, very publicly, and framed in universal values-driven, the conversation would look different. Not simpler. But more honest.
It would have been harder to argue that Israel was indifferent to civilian loss. It would have complicated slogans. And it would have forced the world to hold two truths at once: that civilian life is sacred, and that responsibility for its endangerment is on Hamas and the jihadi groups.
Jewish values that frame this
On Oct 26, 2023, just a couple of weeks after the horrific pogrom on Israel, I wrote a lesson plan for Jewish educators and rabbis to use to help frame a really difficult discussion about Israel and Hamas, the hostages and the civilians. The concept is that we often have to weigh and measure many important and soul-moving values against each other when they sit in tension on a particular issue (a framing often used by M² in their values education work). This isn’t an easy task, but it is important to remember that Judaism does not demand perfection. It demands responsibility.
The idea of buying time, buying safety and security, of prioritizing evacuations are driven by a few key Jewish values: Pikuach nefesh teaches that saving life overrides almost everything. Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa commands us not to stand idly by. Areivut, mutual responsibility, insists that moral obligation does not end at borders. [Image AI generated]
Jewish ethical tradition understands triage—that saving some when all cannot be saved is tragic, but refusing to save any because not all can be saved is its own moral failure.
In addition, we have Jewish wisdom from the story of Moshe and Yitro about asking for help and delegating responsibility (i.e. asking for global assistance):
And the father-in-law of Moshe saw what he did for the nation. And he said, “What is this thing that you do for the nation? Why do you sit by yourself and all the nation stands before you from morning until evening?” And Moshe said to his father-in law, “(This is) because the nation comes to me to seek Hashem. When there is a dispute, they come to me and I judge between a man and his friend. And I make known to them the laws of Hashem and His Torah.” (Sefer Shemot 18:14-16)
And you should select from the entire nation men of valor, who fear Hashem, men of truth, who despise profit, and place them upon the nation as ministers of the thousands, ministers of the hundreds, ministers of the fifties, and ministers of the tens. And they will judge the nation at all times. Any great matter they will bring to you. All minor matters they will judge. Your burden will be lightened and they will bear it with you. (Sefer Shemot 18:21-22)
This plan was not naïve idealism. It is values-informed visioning.
Looking forward, not backward
None of this changes the reality for Gaza’s civilians today. But articulating this vision matters precisely because it could shape how the world responds next time (and there will almost certainly be a next time).
A visible, coordinated humanitarian framework would not only save lives. It would clarify responsibility early, expose who is willing to act and who is not, and establish a precedent that atrocities, hostage-taking, and the use of civilians as shields will not be rewarded with moral confusion.
It would allow the world to say that when faced with unbearable human vulnerability, we tried. That matters. Even when the outcome is imperfect.
JewishGPS 
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