Consider This from NPR - October 7th: A year of war through the eyes of those who lived it

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

The October 7th Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza have changed the course of geopolitics. The events have upended the lives of countless individuals, and they wil...l have far reaching consequences for the world. Today, we're presenting a special episode of State of the World, NPR's daily global news podcast. Our team of reporters in the region bring us stories of lives changed in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.State of the World brings you vital international stories from NPR reporters around the globe every week day. You can find them on Apple, Spotify or your podcast platform of choice.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. As we approach one year since Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, we bring you a special episode of State of the World. It's a podcast from our colleagues at NPR's International Desk, and you can find and follow State of the World on your podcast platform of choice for new episodes every weekday. Today on State of the World, marking one year since the October 7th attacks, looking back at a year that reshaped the Middle East through the eyes of those who lived it. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. I'm Greg Dixon. And in this longer episode today, we're looking back at the year since the October 7th attacks on Israel.
Starting point is 00:00:46 Here's NPR's Daniel Estrin reporting on events that day. Heavily armed Palestinian militants in Gaza flew across the border on paragliders. They swam through the Mediterranean Sea. They drove over land in pickup trucks through Israel's fortified border fence. And they infiltrated several Israeli military camps and at least five Israeli communities, residential communities near Gaza. And there are still gun battles going on with Israeli forces. The attacks were led by the militant group Hamas. By the time they were over, some 1,200 people were killed.
Starting point is 00:01:22 Another 250 were taken hostage and held in Gaza. It was the deadliest day in Israeli history, and it would lead to the deadliest war in Palestinian history. Israeli ground troops have entered northern Gaza as part of an expanded military operation against Hamas militants. Israel declared war on Hamas and a few days later invaded Gaza, unleashing punishing barrages from the air and ground that killed Hamas fighters, but also many, many civilians.
Starting point is 00:01:51 More than 40,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza, and the number keeps climbing. Everything is in a mess. Blood everywhere. And everywhere that you can see. A year later, the aftermath of October 7th appears to be dragging the entire Middle East into conflict. It is an indirect cause of Israel's attacks against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ground invasion of that country. And Iran's recent response, a missile attack against Israel. It will be years before the consequences for the region and the world are fully understood. We're marking this momentous event in geopolitics by hearing what it has meant for individuals in
Starting point is 00:02:32 Israel, in Gaza, in the West Bank, people whose lives were upended by the October 7th attacks and everything that followed. We're going to hear a series of stories from our team of reporters in the region. And a warning, some of these stories will include disturbing descriptions of war and its consequences. First, NPR's Daniel Estrin takes us to an Israeli community still grieving losses from October 7th. Silence is what kept the survivors of Kibbutz Be'eri alive on October 7th. They stayed silent, some of them for 20 hours, huddled in reinforced safe rooms at home, hoping they wouldn't be discovered as Hamas attackers
Starting point is 00:03:11 went door to door, breaking into safe rooms, shooting, burning down homes. Silence is what the survivors carried out of hiding, from their homes along the Gaza border to the hotel on the Dead Sea that took them in. That's where psychologist Meirav Roth met them. It was the most quiet place I've ever seen. Everybody were quiet, defeated. Their bodies were like no air inside. She had heard their whispers on October 7th, live on the news,
Starting point is 00:03:44 as Hamas led thousands of attackers bursting out of Gaza, ambushing Israeli towns and communities. The Israelis, we all were on the radio hearing them whispering to the radio people, why doesn't anyone come? Why everybody? Where's the army? They're in my house. They're shooting at me. We will remember this for the rest of our lives, all of us. It took many weeks to account for everyone who was dead, who was captive in Gaza.
Starting point is 00:04:12 Roth sat with the survivors of the tight-knit community of Kibbutz Be'eri in the hotel basement as the village secretary read the names of 27 identified bodies and 108 people unaccounted for. So imagine the reading of 27 names and then 108 names and just name by name by name. And everybody are, again, quiet, dead quiet. By Israel's final tally, about 1,200 people were killed. Kibbutz Be'eri's loss was the greatest. 102 dead, three still held captive in Gaza, believed to be alive.
Starting point is 00:04:52 All year long, Roth has helped the kibbutz make agonizing decisions. For instance, there is a boy in the kibbutz who lost four members of his family, two parents and two siblings. So do we tell him about each separately or do we tell him about all of them together? It's like questions from inferno, really. Kibbutz Be'eri is still burying its dead one year later. Mourners walk quietly out of the neighborhood cemetery. They laid to rest a mother and her 15-year-old son
Starting point is 00:05:33 with his surfboard, his dying wish, as he bled out in his home October 7th. Many families are exhuming their loved ones from temporary graves and moving them home to the kibbutz graveyard along the Gaza border, where it's safer now, a year into the war. I am so exhausted after every funeral that we have to deal with again.
Starting point is 00:05:55 The head of the kibbutz, Gal Cohen. Because it brings everything. And we cry again. And we tell the stories again. And we do all the ceremony. So why do it again? Because at that time I was in another funeral, so now I have time to say goodbye to them. The natural course of grieving is stunted. It keeps getting rewound.
Starting point is 00:06:30 We meet Batia Ofir. She watched her brother's partially decomposed body be exhumed recently. They reburied him here. She said, it was not easy, but I had to see him. She felt she needed to be there, because she feels guilty she wasn't with her brother and family in their worst moment.
Starting point is 00:06:50 And now? She says, what gives me strength? First of all, it's a decision. I said to myself, what do you want? To continue living? I can also not. I really thought about it. And then I decided that I wanted to continue to live. I have a family, I have children, I have grandchildren.
Starting point is 00:07:32 I draw, I'm learning to kayak, to deal with all my fears. I do everything to give some meaning to life now that they're gone. A couple hundred families have moved back to Kibbutz Be'eri. They're living among the wrecked homes from that day. Bullet holes, shattered windows, a pair of children's shoes in the debris. October 7th,
Starting point is 00:07:57 frozen in time. There's a debate in the community, what to do with these buildings. Some of the people say, let's make it like the Auschwitz, okay? And it will be open for people to come and see what happened here. Gal Cohen. So it's something that we'll have to vote on.
Starting point is 00:08:15 But I think that, I believe we'll have to take them all down. He doesn't want one person moving back to see all this and relive the nightmare. Yasmin Ra'anan waters her new plants. She moved back home a few months ago. The attackers tried to burst into her safe room, but she had an extra lock that kept them out. When she was finally rescued the night of October 7th, she saw rows of grenades in her living room. They had turned it into their headquarters. The man she had heard all day preparing ammunition in her home
Starting point is 00:08:52 was sitting outside, guarded by an Israeli soldier. She said, I came with my gun to the terrorist to kill him. And then the Special Forces Commando takes me and says, Ma'am, we're a moral nation. I said, I have no more morals anymore. He took my gun away. So I took the terrorist by the head. I said, what's your name?
Starting point is 00:09:20 He said his name. She said, I will make sure you have no more family, no home, no Gaza. I asked her if she still wants vengeance one year later. She said, revenge? Yes. But a year later, she said, things begin to sink. Time heals. That was NPR's Daniel Estrin reporting from Kibbutz Be'eri on the Gaza border. Now, a story from the other side of that border.
Starting point is 00:09:59 The Israeli military has bombed the Gaza Strip tens of thousands of times in the last year as part of its effort to eliminate Hamas. Israel says that, unlike Hamas, it follows international law and takes precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Still, tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza have died, and millions have had their lives upended by the fighting throughout the Gaza Strip. NPR's Ea Batraoui has the story of one woman in Gaza. It's difficult to capture the depth of suffering in Gaza this past year. But I could already hear it in Iman Ebboside's voice when I reached her in Gaza City just two days into the war. Many of the buildings surrounding us have been bombed by F-16s.
Starting point is 00:10:45 So, you know, we're trying to escape, but we don't know where to go. Drones and airstrikes have been a constant for people in Gaza over the past year, ever since the Hamas attack on Israel October 7th, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage. Iman's 12-year-old daughter Judy and 11-year-old son Ziad were scared those early days. Each time an Israeli fighter jet roared overhead, dropping another bomb, including on the house next to theirs. They'd run and hide under the couch.
Starting point is 00:11:20 Because they think it's the safest place here in the house to be a little bit away from the walls that are looking outside the street. A few days after we spoke, Israel's military ordered more than a million people in Gaza City and northern Gaza to evacuate. Leaflets dropped from Israeli warplanes told them where to flee to for safety. But there is no safe place in Gaza. The health ministry there says tens of thousands of people have been killed by Israeli fire over the past year, with thousands more unaccounted for. At least a third of those killed are children. You know, there are things that happen in Gaza that you can't know from news.
Starting point is 00:12:04 You need to live with them to understand, to understand them. Gaza's now a dystopian moonscape of debris and wreckage, of malnutrition, hunger and disease. In the space of a year, it's become unlivable. And people have been displaced over and over again. The man and her kids heeded Israel's evacuation orders that first week, sheltering in her parents' home in Zeyrat in central Gaza. The three-bedroom apartment was crammed with 24 people, half of them kids.
Starting point is 00:12:37 Then on October 31st at 2.30 p.m., a Human Rights Watch investigation says this happened. Without warning, four munitions struck the building in the space of 10 seconds. The airstrike demolished the building and killed at least 106 people, including 54 children. Iman and 22 people in her family, including her children, were among those killed. Relatives tell me her body was pulled out in pieces. Her husband and son are among many never recovered from under the rubble. It was a targeted attack on that building. Jerry Simpson is the lead researcher in Human Rights Watch's investigation. The overall death toll from that attack is likely to be higher. More than 350 people had been sheltering in the building.
Starting point is 00:13:27 Kids outside playing soccer were also killed. It wasn't the only attack on this scale that day. Israel says Hamas fighters endanger civilians by embedding among the population in Gaza. Human Rights Watch, however, found there was no military target in this attack and determined the Israeli airstrike violated the laws of war. They spoke to relatives of people killed that day, analyzed satellite imagery, and examined dozens of photographs and videos. If you attack a building where there is no military target and you kill this number of people, it's automatically very
Starting point is 00:14:03 likely a war crime. He says surveillance in the days and even hours before the attack would have shown the building packed with people and the children playing outside. NPR reached out to Israel's military multiple times to ask why the building was hit. The military did not respond to NPR's questions. Simpson says Human Rights Watch also heard nothing back. We expected the IDF to try and mount some kind of a defense, but we received just a wall of silence. But there was one survivor in that apartment, Iman's sister, Takwa.
Starting point is 00:14:36 I reach her in Gaza City, 11 months after the airstrike. Over a crackling phone line, she tells me faintly that when she came to consciousness, she was in a hospital. The last thing she remembers is sitting in her parents' living room under the window with her baby, Ibrahim, just four months old, in her lap. He was the youngest of her six children in the apartment that day. The oldest, Sumaya, was 12. She remembers fading in and out of consciousness at the hospital for weeks and asking her husband, who wasn't with her at the time of the attack, if their kids had warm clothes, if Ibrahim had any milk.
Starting point is 00:15:26 A month later, her family would tell her the truth, that all six of her children were killed in the October 31st airstrike, that she alone survived. I checked the names and ages of each child with her over the phone. Takwa suffered serious injuries in the attack, but it all pales next to the loss of her children. Her phone was destroyed, and with it nearly all her kids' photos and videos. But she clings to a handful of images in just a few seconds of this video of her kids on an orange raft in a pool. When people in Gaza heard that Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire back in May, they celebrated the news.
Starting point is 00:16:23 Prematurely, it would turn out, but not Taqwa. She says she distanced herself from those cheering and cried, because she had no reason to celebrate, and no one to celebrate with. In Gaza City, the call to prayer punctuates my call with taqwa. These are the words Muslims recite daily and whisper into the ears of newborns. I asked taqwa what she prays for in these moments. She tells me she prays to be reunited with her kids and parents. And that many times a day, she asks God to bring her death, what people there call martyrdom.
Starting point is 00:17:17 Life in Gaza is hard to measure. This is how her sister Iman described it to me before she was killed. You know, in Gaza, seconds, seconds between life and death. This is how her sister Iman described it to me before she was killed. In Gaza, seconds, seconds between life and death. You can't expect when, how long will you live. Aya Patrawi, NPR News, Dubai. After the break, we head to the West Bank to hear how the war in Gaza has impacted that Palestinian territory. Stay with us. Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast
Starting point is 00:18:01 to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail, and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened. We tell you why it matters. Thanks for having me. NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news,
Starting point is 00:18:54 we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day. Welcome back to State of the World. We're looking at the year since the October 7th attacks through the eyes of those who lived it. We've heard stories of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and of Israelis living on the border with Gaza. On the other side of Israel, nestled against the Jordan River, is the West Bank. The Palestinian territory has been occupied by the Israeli military for decades. As NPR's Kat Lanzorf tells us, for the Palestinians who live in the West Bank, there's been a significant increase in violence
Starting point is 00:19:36 from Israeli settlers and the military over the last year. And after watching the invasion in Gaza, they fear that they're next. This is one of the youngest classes at a primary school in Muwajarat, a rural Palestinian Bedouin community tucked into the rolling hills of the Jordan Valley near Jericho. On this day, the littlest ones are learning to count. But just a few days ago, the scene here was much, much different. When extremist Israeli settlers stormed the school while it was in session, they wielded wooden bats and tried to break into locked classrooms where students were sheltering. In this video filmed that day
Starting point is 00:20:16 by an Israeli human rights activist, you can see the Israeli settlers beat a young teacher and attack the activist who's filming. They also beat and detained the principal, several other teachers, a student, and other community members. Nine-year-old Obaidah Mikhat was there the day of the attack. MBR visited the next morning, and he showed us where he hid in his classroom. Behind a fan in the corner, away from the door, he says. It was scary, he says. Obaid's dad, Suleiman Mikhat, is head of the community.
Starting point is 00:20:54 He says he rushed to the school when he heard the attack was happening. He had two young kids there. He says the Israeli military showed up and blocked him and other parents from entering, but also didn't stop the settlers. My children are my soul, he says, so it was incredibly difficult to not know if they were okay. When he finally did get to them, he says he hugged them very tight. Suleiman says he recognized this group of settlers. They've attacked the community before, poisoning sheep and hurting people. But this, coming to the school, threatening children, this is new. They're trying
Starting point is 00:21:33 to get us to leave, he says, to evict us. And he says it might happen if attacks like this continue. Settler violence isn't about a group of young guys on a hilltop anymore. Allegra Pacheco is an American attorney who heads the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of international NGOs focused on protecting the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank from forced displacement and attacks. Pacheco has been working in the West Bank for decades. She says before October 7th, most Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law, were relatively unconcerned with nearby Palestinians
Starting point is 00:22:11 as long as they didn't interfere with settler life. Now we're seeing much more rhetoric. Palestinians are the enemies, that they're legitimate targets. Rhetoric that has become mainstream. And then that, of course, transfers into the violence that we're seeing. Attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank skyrocketed after October 7th.
Starting point is 00:22:31 The UN documented nearly 1,400 attacks, which don't include harassment or threats, in the past year, the highest number since the organization began collecting data nearly 20 years ago. The attacks are often orchestrated to intimidate Palestinians into leaving their land. Pacheco says about 17 communities have been forcefully displaced this way in the past year. Once the Palestinians are chased out of these areas, the settlements move in and make it much harder to give back the land to the Palestinians. That is the goal. The Yesha Council, the Israeli umbrella organization for all the settlements in the West Bank, has it listed on its website in English, quote, to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Starting point is 00:23:14 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, with ultra-nationalist lawmakers in major positions of power overseeing the West Bank, encourages the expansion of illegal settlements and instructs the Israeli police and military to protect them. Meanwhile, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time. World leaders like President Biden in his State of the Union address earlier this year are still pushing for a two-state solution. In the more heavily populated areas of the West Bank, violence has also upended Palestinian life in the form of longer, more destructive and more deadly raids by the Israeli military, which have killed at least 678 Palestinians since October 7th, according to the U.N. This is Jenin.
Starting point is 00:23:56 In late August, the Israeli military launched one of its most extensive and deadliest raids in the West Bank in years. Jenin was the epicenter. Farha Abu-Hajjah is a community leader here. She points out all the damage done by the Israeli military in this recent operation, which lasted 10 days and killed 28 people. The streets have been ripped up, giant potholes from explosions. Much of the infrastructure was damaged too.
Starting point is 00:24:23 Water and sewage flow through the streets and power lines are ripped down. The Israeli military says operations like this are necessary for counterterrorism. Janine and other cities in the West Bank have long been militant strongholds, which have also grown more active since October 7th. We get out of the car and Farha shows us through the streets. It's much worse here than before, she says, a complete destruction of life and infrastructure. It looks like Gaza, she says. Jenin is Gaza, but in the West Bank.
Starting point is 00:24:56 This last three months have essentially brought in, I would say, tremendous fears that the destruction in Gaza is going to happen in the West Bank as well. Khalil Shikaki is a political scientist and pollster in Ramallah. He says Palestinians in the West Bank are feeling increasingly unsafe, unprotected, and at the mercy of Israeli troops and even airstrikes, which have restarted in the West Bank after many, many years. And this has led to a significant rise in the perception of West bankers that Gaza is coming to them. Farhat brings us to the Abu Ali family home, where 26 members of the extended
Starting point is 00:25:36 family were living, including eight children, spread over three floors. Now the main floor apartment is charred, completely black, covered in debris. A melted and warped ceiling fan hangs overhead. A crumpled refrigerator sits in what was once a kitchen. The back wall is blasted with a giant gaping hole. The matriarch of the family, Raida, says that Israeli soldiers arrived in the night and ordered everyone out of the house. They carried a gas canister into the back room.
Starting point is 00:26:06 They told them, count to three, and you'll hear it explode. The children all covered their ears. That was a terrible moment, she says, listening to her home blow up. She says the soldiers gave no reason for why they blew up the house. No one in her family is affiliated with any militant groups, she says. The Israeli military told NPR that it was not aware of this specific incident. Raida says they hope to rebuild, although she worries their home could be destroyed again. As Raida speaks, her sister-in-law Samira begins weeding the front garden
Starting point is 00:26:38 her three-year-old son plays at her feet. Samira says these plants were blown across the courtyard in the explosion, but she picked them up and replanted them. She points to a small red flower and smiles. Look, she says, even after all that, they bloom. It's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Jenin in the West Bank. After the State of Israel was created in 1948, Palestinians living there who didn't flee or get expelled from their homes were granted Israeli citizenship. Today, those Palestinian citizens of Israel make up a fifth of the population. Many live and work alongside
Starting point is 00:27:18 Jewish Israelis and speak fluent Arabic and Hebrew. Some were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7th. But for the last year, as Israel has mourned the attacks and gone to war, things have changed for this segment of the population. They say they now live in a climate of fear. Here's NPR's Hadil Al-Shalchi reporting from a historically Arab part of Tel Aviv called Jaffa. Walking through central Jaffa, around me are shops with both Arabic and Hebrew signs. Many women wearing hijab and Palestinians and Jews share spaces in coffee shops, stores and restaurants. This shared and tense life was never easy for Palestinians before October 7th,
Starting point is 00:28:00 and now they say it's all been upended in the smallest ways. Abu Yahya changes the wheel of a bicycle in his shop in Jaffa. He's always had a mix of Arab and Jewish customers and friends. But after October 7th, he says he's viewed with suspicion by his Jewish neighbors. The way they look at you is different now, Abu Yahya says. He says he's lost Jewish customers. They walk in, see you're an Arab, and walk out, Abu Yahya says. Palestinians in Jaffa have deep ties to fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
Starting point is 00:28:40 Abu Yahya says some of his relatives there have been killed in the war. Just a few miles away, families of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas have set up hostage square in central Tel Aviv with tents and art installations and memorials to October 7th victims. But Abu Yahya hasn't held any memorials for his killed relatives. He says he doesn't want his Jewish neighbors to mistake his grief for support for Hamas. I don't even dare to write the words, rest in peace, on Facebook to mourn my cousin, he says. Palestinian citizens of Israel say they feel vulnerable in their hometowns post October 7th. Many say that some of their Jewish counterparts blamed them as Arabs for the events of that day. Sami Abushadeh is a prominent Jaffa politician who served in the Israeli parliament. I was attacked physically and verbally a few times on the streets.
Starting point is 00:29:29 Here in Jaffa, a lot of the Muslim women that wear scarves were attacked on the public transportation. And part of them now are afraid to go to hospitals or to go to visit a doctor because they are attacked on the streets because they are not Jewish. He says his neighbors have been fired from their jobs. One of them was just working in a supermarket. His boss sent him a message by WhatsApp, don't come to work tomorrow. We have stopped hiring terrorists. The worker wouldn't speak to NPR or identify the supermarket for fear of appraisal. This treatment has been confusing to some.
Starting point is 00:30:08 Many Palestinian citizens of Israel are prominent members of the community, including in the medical field, and they help treat many of the injured on October 7th. On the same day, they were rescued by Arab Palestinians. Those who were injured, they were dealt with by Arab doctors in the hospital. Ahmed Khalifa waves from his front door. It's illegal for him to go any further. He's been under house arrest for almost 10 months.
Starting point is 00:30:38 The 42-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel is a human rights lawyer who defends the rights of Palestinians. On October 19th, he was arrested during an anti-war demonstration in his town in Malfahim. That's an Arab town in northern Israel. He was chanting slogans he says were in support of Palestinian victims of the war. They were saying, Gaza don't sway, you are full of dignity and glory. Khalifa was indicted for incitement of terrorism and identifying with a terrorist organization based on that slogan. We are living in a political body that claims to be a democratic state, but it's a Jewish democracy that we have no place. NPR spoke to many Palestinian citizens of Israel who were jailed for social media posts supporting an end to the war, or who were harassed in public.
Starting point is 00:31:28 They were all afraid to go on record, even anonymously. The Knesset Research and Information Centre says that 84 indictments for incitement to terrorism were filed between 2018 and 2022, mainly against Arabs. That number has more than doubled since the outbreak of the war. Last October, Israel's police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, made his position clear. Whoever wants to be a citizen of Israel, welcome, he said. Whoever wants to identify with Gaza is welcome.
Starting point is 00:31:57 I'll put them on a bus headed there. Maisel Amorani is a lawyer with the rights group Adela. She also represents Khalifa. Amorani says Israeli courts used to be more sympathetic to her clients, but not since October 7th. I'm standing there arguing the same things that argued before that led to the release of a lot of people. I'm getting to a dead end with the court, with the judges, with the attorney general. Even the judges are harsher. They just look at me and say,
Starting point is 00:32:25 and many times we get this answer, what was before the 7th of October is not what's happening after the 7th of October. We reached out to the Israeli Justice Department, but they did not respond with comment. In the Jabaliya Mosque in Jaffa, Imam Bilal Dekke leads about 10 men in afternoon prayers. Palestinian Muslims come to find spiritual guidance from Dekke at a time of anguish.
Starting point is 00:32:50 But even the preacher says he's avoiding any reference to the war. Any Friday sermon about Gaza and the police will arrest you, he says. Dekke says many in his congregation come to ease their pain over the war in private. I tell them to be patient, Deke says, that there is a mighty God above. Hadil Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv. After the break, amidst suffering and fear, a ray of hope.
Starting point is 00:33:37 These days, it can feel like the news is fighting for your attention wherever you turn, but staying informed shouldn't be a battle. Everything you need to navigate the stories that matter to you is at your fingertips. The NPR app cuts through the noise, bringing you local, national, and global coverage. Welcome back. In the years since the October 7th attacks, news from the Middle East has been grim, with violence escalating in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon. Now, a story about a group of Israeli and Palestinian women who are demanding a different future for their children. They were working for peace even before the October 7th attacks. And as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports, they say now their mission has become more urgent than ever. On October 4th of last year, Yael Browdo-Bahat and her organization Women Wage Peace were marching with Palestinians from a group called Women of the Sun. Imagine 1,500 women from both sides, women came from the West Bank to march
Starting point is 00:34:43 with us, the Israelis in Jerusalem, calling to end the bloodshed, calling to from both sides, women came from the West Bank to march with us, the Israelis, in Jerusalem, calling to end the bloodshed, calling to resolve the conflict, to change reality. Israeli and Palestinian mothers together demand a political solution for this long-lasting conflict. Three days later, Palestinian militants led by Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, including the co-founder of her organization. Israel retaliated with a war in Gaza that has devastated the region, leaving some 41,000 Palestinians dead, including 38 activists with Women of the Sun. Reem Al-Hajadra, through an interpreter, calls this a tremendous loss. Because these women are activists, these are women who want peace,
Starting point is 00:35:25 and these are women who got dragged into the war. She says it was hard to continue to work with Israelis as the death toll mounted in Gaza and the conflict expanded. But Al-Hajrajra says the women remain united as mothers who refuse to sacrifice their children. At the moment that hope dies in our heart, that means that there will not be a better life. At the break of every dawn, we look at their children and they replenish hope in us. We meet at Georgetown University, where the two organizations were given an award by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Together, Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace have issued what they call a mother's call that recognizes the unique perspectives that women bring to the peace process.
Starting point is 00:36:18 Clinton says she signed her name to the petition, throwing her support behind the Israeli and Palestinian women. Their members are women in conflict zones who have lost children, parents, and loved ones. But instead of being embittered and turning to rancor and despair, they are working for peace. And we owe it to them and the loved ones they honor with their work to do the same. Israeli activist Angela Scharf told the audience it was not easy to draft the mother's call. Every single word had to be negotiated because every word had a different meaning in our different societies. But we made it. We made it. It took us nine months, but we made it, like giving birth. Palestinian activist Reem al-Hajadra is careful about the way she talks about the conflict.
Starting point is 00:37:14 While many Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out a genocide, she simply calls for peace. If we ask and demand peace, that doesn't mean that we accept the current situation and what the Palestinians are enduring. Our most important demand is the freedom of the Palestinian people. And a break in the cycle of violence, says Israeli activist Yael Brauda-Bahat. Our language is no blaming and no shaming. We look into the future and we demand a different future, a future of peace and reconciliation. And we want to stop the bludgeon. Do you feel like you're kind of a lonely voice, though, in Israeli society right now? Well, we're not a popular voice, I must say, but we are not alone at all. She says she continues to work in honor of Vivian Silver, the co-founder of Women Wage Peace, who was killed at her home in Kibbutz Berri last October.
Starting point is 00:38:09 Silver's son has joined the cause, too. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department. That's the State of the World from NPR. Make sure to find and follow us on your podcast platform of choice. We have new episodes featuring stories from our reporters around the globe every weekday. We want to take a minute to thank the incredible team of journalists on the ground in the Middle East who have made the last year of NPR's vital coverage from the region possible. They are...
Starting point is 00:38:43 Anas Baba in Gaza. Shir David in Tel Aviv. Abu Bakr Bashir from the region possible. They are... Anas Baba in Gaza. Shir David in Tel Aviv. Abu Bakr Bashir from Gaza in London. Alon Avital in Tel Aviv. Nathan Odenheimer in Jerusalem. Jawad Rizallah in Beirut. Eve Gutterman in Tel Aviv. Noha Musleh in Ramallah.
Starting point is 00:39:00 Yanal Jabarin in Tel Aviv. Ahmed Abu Hamda from Gaza in Cairo. Itai Stern in Tel Aviv. Thank you all for your tireless work. State of the World has production support from Christine Aerosmith, Emma Klein, and Catherine Fink. Editing from James Heider, Tara Neal, Vincent Nee, Nick Spicer, and Jerry Holmes. Audio engineering by Carly Strange, Patrick Murray, Becky Brown, Andy Huther, and Valentina Rodriguez. Our executive producer is Didi Skanky. I'm Greg Dixon. Thanks for listening. The NPR app cuts through the noise, bringing you local, national, and global coverage.
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