Michael Rose, an assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls for the U.S. to deploy one or both U.S. Navy hospital ships to the coast of Gaza to treat Palestinian children ages 15 and under. I always welcome any attempt at a constructive solution, and this proposal would likely do some good — helping save lives among the indisputably genuinely innocent Palestinians, with certain precautions in place to ensure Hamas doesn’t attempt to get care for its injured combatants.
But there’s one wrinkle that could be a real complication:
Others might fear for the safety of our sailors. Certainly, no one is fully safe near a war zone. Because of their size, however, the Comfort and Mercy would have to anchor out at sea with patients arriving via Navy helicopters or smaller boats. This distance from the front lines decreases the risk of disaster from a misfired missile or botched bomb.
Okay, but this would require U.S. Navy helicopters to fly into Gaza, or for U.S. Navy smaller ships or boats dock at the ports — er, make that the port in the Gaza Strip.
The Israelis would almost certainly be careful to avoid any fire near U.S. hospital ships, or U.S. Navy helicopters or smaller ships transporting injured children and medical personnel. But in a world where Hamas turns away fuel aid for hospitals just because they don’t want Israel to get the credit, it seems likely that Hamas would attempt to use this new factor on the battlefield to its tactical advantage. They would likely attempt to use those medical evacuation sites as cover for military action, or perhaps even attack those helicopters or smaller ships and claim the Israelis did it. As we’ve seen throughout this conflict, Hamas hides behind Palestinian civilians at every opportunity and has absolutely no concerns about the well-being of the people they claim to be defending. The risk probably isn’t a reason to reject to this proposal outright, but it’s a major complication.
Rose notes that the USNS Mercy is en route to a planned mission in the Pacific, and the USNS Comfort is moored in Mobile, Ala., undergoing upgrades. Getting either ship to the region will take a while. Then again, it doesn’t look like the Israel-Hamas war is going to end anytime soon.