Not One Hero in Gaza

Noa Marciano should have lived. A society with even a single courageous individual might have saved her. Instead, a doctor ended her life and the global institutions looked the other way.

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

Written By: Saul Jassinowsky

The murder of 19-year-old Noa Marciano is one of the most devastating revelations to emerge from the October 7 atrocities. According to Israel’s forensic findings, Noa suffered air injected into her veins by a Gazan doctor. Not a militant. Not a masked Hamas operative. A doctor. Someone who swore to preserve life. Someone who, by universal ethical standards, should have been incapable of such cruelty.

Her killing is not only a personal tragedy. It is a moral indictment of a society where hostages were hidden, guarded, and abused not only by terrorists but by civilians, professionals, and community members who chose collaboration or silence.

Israelis have searched for even a single example of a Gazan civilian who helped an Israeli hostage survive or escape. In Nazi Germany, under a regime of total surveillance and lethal punishment, there were Righteous Among the Nations who risked everything to save Jews. Yet in Gaza - a society not sealed off from the world, not policed like North Korea, not under a dictatorship that kills dissenters for a whisper - not one such story exists. No neighbour passed food under a door. No teacher or shopkeeper alerted the Red Cross. No one smuggled a message to a family. Nothing.

Instead, we now know that:

● Some hostages were held by doctors, including Noa, whose life ended at the hands of someone wearing a white coat.

● Some were held by journalists, individuals whose profession is built on exposing injustice, not hiding it.

● Others were kept in ordinary apartments, in residential buildings where families went about daily life while captives lay gagged in back rooms.

This is not fringe behaviour. It reveals a society in which the infrastructure of civilian life - homes, clinics, media spaces - became the infrastructure of hostage-taking.

And yet, what has been the response from the global medical community? From professional bodies that claim to uphold universal ethics?

The South African Medical Association (SAMA) and similar organizations around the world have issued statements condemning Israel, some even accusing it of violating medical neutrality. But on the murder of Noa Marciano by a Gaza doctor, they have been silent. Utterly silent. Silence when a doctor violates every foundational principle of medicine. Silence when medical ethics are shredded in the most grotesque way imaginable.

In their refusal to speak, they have revealed a double standard that corrodes the very values they claim to defend.

This brings us back to the comparison many shy away from: Nazi Germany. The point is not to equate eras mechanically but to illuminate a moral contrast. Even under a genocidal regime, ordinary Germans and Europeans emerged as rescuers. They hid Jewish children, forged papers, and risked execution because they believed that human life was sacred.

In Gaza, the world has not found even one such example.

The international community must ask why. Why did no one choose righteousness over complicity? Why did a doctor become a murderer? Why did journalists become jailers? Why did civic leaders, unions, and professional associations find their voice only when condemning Israel but not when confronting barbarity within Gaza itself?

Noa Marciano should have lived. A society with even a single courageous individual might have saved her. Instead, a doctor ended her life and the global institutions sworn to uphold medical ethics looked away.

When evil becomes so normalized that not one righteous voice emerges from an entire civilian population, the world must confront a disturbing truth: this is no longer only a story of Hamas. It is a story of the moral ecosystem that allowed them to thrive - and the global silence that continues to shield them.

Saul Jassinowsky is a prominent Jewish communal leader. He is a strong advocate for Jewish communal interests, Israel engagement, and principled public discourse. Alongside his professional career, he has been actively involved in philanthropy and civil-society initiatives, and is widely respected for his forthright, values-driven approach to leadership.