Israeli and Palestinian peace comes at a cost

Simply making it through the day and staying alive at night seems like a miracle in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians are asking for help to stay safe in Gaza. The head of the main UN aid agency in Gaza called the situation an ongoing and worsening tragedy, like living in hell on earth.

It must be really terrible for the people taken by Hamas and for the families of their victims. War is very painful and hard for people to go through. But the heat can create changes that seemed not possible.

It happened in the Western part of Europe after the second World War. Former enemies who had been fighting each other for centuries decided to make peace. Can the fighting in Gaza make Israelis and Palestinians finally stop their long conflict over the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river.

Muhammad Abu Shaar’s wife after he died.

I watched a video of a very sad woman sitting next to her dead husband, Muhammad Abu Shaar. Israel and Egypt are not letting reporters go into Gaza, so I haven’t seen her. I can’t figure out her name because it wasn’t with the names of her husband and children who died.

In the video, she seems to believe that if she grieves hard enough, it will bring him back.

“I promise that we agreed to die together. ” You passed away and you’re not here anymore. What should we do, God. Muhammad, wake up. My love, I promise I love you. Please, get up, for God’s sake. Our kids Nour and Aboud are here with you. Wake

The father and his two children were together because they were all just killed by Israel. A big bomb destroyed the house they were hoping to stay in in Rafah.

Yonatan Zeigen is a person’s name.

I went to Yonatan Zeigen’s apartment in Tel Aviv. The house was cozy and had a lot of toys belonging to his children. I saw a photo of his mother, Vivian Silver, who worked to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Vivian was at her family’s house in kibbutz Be’eri, near Gaza, when Hamas attacked on October 7th.

I met Yonatan for the first time after his kibbutz was attacked. He was hoping that his mother was taken to Gaza as a hostage.

He called Vivian when he heard the air raid sirens in Tel Aviv. They started using WhatsApp when they heard gunshots and explosions in the kibbutz, hoping that if they stayed quiet, Hamas would not come to the house.

He read the messages they sent each other. At first, they were joking around, but then they got serious and filled with love when she realized there was a massacre happening.

“She wrote to me and said they are in the house. She thinks it’s time to stop joking around and say goodbye,” he tells me.

“I wrote back saying ‘I love you, Mom. ‘” I can’t express how much I’m with you. She says, ‘I understand how you’re feeling’. And that was the end, that’s the final message.

The next day, I went to her house in the kibbutz and saw that it was burned. It took a long time for the investigators to find Vivian Silver’s body in the ash that was left in the safe room. Yonatan stopped being a social worker so he could work for peace.

“They entered my land and murdered my mother because we didn’t have peace. ” “So, to me, this just shows that we need it,” he says.

“It could go in one direction or the other. ” Disasters like this make societies in the world change. And I think it can make the future better.”