Written on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum, Israel in May 2024, amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict that turned into one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 21st century

I knew

That you were not a real Sea.

And you did not send,

Unlike a Sea,

A sigh of waves to my feet.

But your fishes spoke to me

Of an endless quest,

A quest for home,

The home of their birth.

And they wanted to say more

But, the boats!

The boats drowned their voices

Fishermen hooked a few of them

Some got netted,

And I was asked

To say nothing to anyone…

But I was allowed to take photographs.

Of course, I knew

you were not a real Sea.

How is it then,

That a sighing wave

Still reached me

But not the fishes,

Quite like a Sea?

Author: Vidit Panchal ([email protected]) Community Health Physician, Basic Healthcare Services, Vidya Bhavan Rural Institute, Badgaon, Udaipur, Rajasthan 313001, INDIA.

Conflict of Interest: None     Funding: None

To cite: Panchal V. Sea of Galilee. Indian J Med Ethics. Published online first on May 26, 2025. DOI: 10.20529/IJME.2025.042

Submission received: February 14, 2025

Submission accepted: April 15, 2025

Manuscript Editor: Meenakshi D’Cruz

Copyright and license

©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2025: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only noncommercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.