While Israeli hospitals and physicians have proved anything but callous when it comes to caring for infants born in enemy territory, Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has recently shown supreme callousness in the case of eight-month-old Indi Gregory, who was removed from life support and allowed to die of a rare congenital illness despite the objections of her parents. Part of the problem, writes George Weigel, is Britons’ “obsessive and often mawkish devotion” to the “false god” that is the NHS:

[B]eing the object of misplaced worship by the British public seems to have convinced NHS doctors that they are, in fact, God.

There are doubtless circumstances when overwrought and distraught parents cannot face the reality of a terminal medical situation, but this does not seem to have been one of them. Great Britain has not (yet) embraced euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. But its National Health Service personnel seem to believe that some of their patients have a duty to die, and if their relatives won’t cooperate, then the docs and the law will take control of the situation and see that the duty to die is fulfilled. Thus does the godlike status of the NHS express itself through its medical personnel.

[W]hen Indi was six months old, her doctors decided that they should withhold further “invasive” treatment. When Indi’s parents disagreed, the hospital went to the courts, where the doctors later changed their request and asked to be permitted to remove critical care, saying that it would be kinder to let her die. The parents continued their legal battle; Rome’s Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital offered to accept Indi as a patient, while the Italian government gave her Italian citizenship and said it would cover all costs; but the judge decided that a move to Rome was not in the baby’s best interest.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.