'Swimming Against the Tide, but Swimming': More Israelis and Palestinians Now Choose to Grieve Together

People attend a screening of the Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony in Jaffa last year. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

The last two and a half years have brought for Israelis and Palestinians an unending spiral of war and violence. In the best case, the public debate is dominated by recognition of one side's pain at the expense of the other's, and in the worst by factionalism and calls for revenge.

But amid all this misery, a new trend has emerged: More and more people from both sides are joining organizations and activities that bring Palestinians and Israelis together – and recognize the other side's humanity.

The 850-member Parents Circle – Families Forum, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who lost family to the conflict, has been active for about 30 years. "In our grief and pain, we act together to change the reality, to stop the cycle of bloodshed and prevent other families from becoming like ours," says Ayelet Harel, the Israeli co-executive director of the group.

Ahead of Monday's Memorial Day eve, the Families Forum counts 150 new members since October 7, 2023 – two-thirds of them Israeli, one-third Palestinian. Harel says that this is exceptional; family members usually take time to process their grief before diverting it to activism. Since the war in Gaza began, "we saw that people were joining very quickly after their loss – not everybody, but we saw that quite a few families reached out and joined."

Harel lost her brother in the 1982 Lebanon war, but she didn't join the forum until 2009. "People feel like they need to join – they understand that they can't remain indifferent, and that they need to do something in the face of the terrible deterioration we're seeing," she says.

Members of Parents Circle – Families Forum at one of the group's meetings in Tel Aviv in 2014. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

In the current climate – endless wars, Hamas' massacre, the massive destruction in Gaza and Israel's far-right government – even people who lost family in the past are joining the forum now. "It's certainly something we weren't seeing before," Harel says. "We had similar stories, but not on this scope."

It's still not an easy choice to join the Families Forum, Harel says. "As the years go by, I think the decision to join the forum takes more courage and determination. The public environment is very far from that.

"We've kept working together, despite the difficulties, the war, the awful situation in the West Bank, the closure. We feel like we're swimming against the tide, but we're swimming."

Liat Atzili, who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, and whose husband, Aviv, was murdered, speaks at the 2025 joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony. Credit: Tome Appelbaum

The group holds meetings of families at its office in the West Bank town of Beit Jala. It's in Area C, meaning that both Israelis and Palestinians can get there, something rarely true about Israel, which has awarded precious few entry permits to Palestinians since October 7, and has barred many of the Palestinian members from attending the ceremony over the years.

The Families Forum has encountered challenges when scheduling conferences; a recent one, which brought together 150 bereaved Israelis and Palestinians, was held by the Dead Sea. "We needed to find a place that would agree to host an encounter between Israelis and Palestinians," Harel says. "It's not a simple thing – not every Palestinian venue wants to do that, and not every Israeli venue wants to do that."

Jews and Arabs demonstrating in Tel Aviv last August for the end to the war in Gaza. Credit: Itai Ron

But when the families do meet, the experience is invaluable. "When people come to us, they feel like they're in a place where they can talk about their opinions, their feelings, and work toward something they believe in," Harel says. "People say they feel like they came home."

There aren't many arguments – conversations are focused on personal stories. "We understand that we don't have to agree on everything," she says. "But we all agree that we can't continue like this, that we need to make a change. We understand that the way to do it is through peace and dialogue, and that continuing this cycle of killing won't bring us security or freedom."

'You have to ask yourself, what would they have wanted? Would they have wanted us to avenge them? What I do know is that they would have wanted their children to be safe and have a better life.'

Abie Troen, who lost his sister and brother-in-law on October 7, on joining the Families Forum

There are still difficult conversations, and emotions run high. "In the reality we're living in, the country is in this mindset of a forever war, and everybody is talking about more bombings, or more death, or more force. It's not easy to make ideas like the forum's heard.

"People come in and hear stories from the other side for the first time, and it's hard for them – it's a revolution of thought, everybody comes in with their own preconceptions. On both sides, there's this thought that 'the other side just wants to kill us.' Even if you know that the other side is human, when you meet someone with a story, it's a very meaningful process."

A demonstration by Combatants for Peace at al-Auja near Jericho in the West Bank, 2024. Credit: Yahel Gazit

Tel Aviv and Jericho

One of the forum's flagship events is the joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony, a tradition now in its 21st year, held in conjunction with the group Combatants for Peace. On a day where most Israelis are focused on their own pain and grief, "it reminds the public of the far too many victims, whose numbers only grew this year, and of this unsolved conflict – and that every person who's killed is a whole world that was cut off," Harel says.

Because few Palestinians can enter Israel, the event will be held simultaneously in Tel Aviv and Jericho, with the Israeli and Palestinian audiences watching and communicating with each other live. It will also be streamed across the country – and the world – for those who can't come to either location.

As a security precaution, the Tel Aviv site will be disclosed only to registrants hours before the event. In the city of Ra'anana last year, a right-wing mob stormed a synagogue that was streaming the event; the violent protesters hurled stones and firecrackers at attendees.

This year's ceremony will be held Monday evening. It will feature Israeli speakers who lost family during the October 7 massacre and in Hamas captivity, as well as Palestinians whose children were killed by the Israeli army. Testimony from Gaza, including Palestinians who lost their homes and several family members in Israeli bombings, will also be screened.

Rana Salman, the Palestinian co-director of Combatants for Peace, says the event has come a long way since its inception two decades ago. It started "in a small room with about 70 people, and now it's thousands of people from Israel, Palestine and all around the world," she says.

Rana Salman
Credit: CFP

'There's so much interest, so much curiosity, to learn about the narrative of the other, to meet the other and actually work together to end this struggle and occupation.'

Rana Salman, the co-director of Combatants for Peace

"They come together on this day to remember and mourn the victims of the conflict from both sides. It's a very significant event, and very controversial, but it's very important, especially during this time, as we keep experiencing so many wars and destruction and the loss of innocent lives."

Like the Families Forum, Combatants for Peace has seen increased interest in recent years, from both sides of the Green Line, Salman says. "For so long, it's been very challenging to recruit young people, especially for a [Palestinian-Israeli] joint organization or movement," she says.

"But in the last few years, we've noticed that there are so many young people from the West Bank taking part in our educational programs for young people. The participation level is much higher than in previous years."

She adds: "There's so much interest, so much curiosity, to learn about the narrative of the other, to meet the other and actually work together to end this struggle and occupation."

Salman is particularly amazed that so many people are joining who originally hail from Gaza and still have family there. "Even though they lost so many relatives during the war and through two years of genocide, they're still committed to nonviolence and co-resistance" alongside Israelis, she says.

"That actually gives me a lot of hope. If they can continue to be part of such an initiative, it makes it an even bigger responsibility for people like us, who have more privilege than others – like the people living in Gaza – to continue this path to end the occupation and achieve a just solution for the land."

More Israelis are also joining, especially to do protective presence work: to act as human shields for Palestinians amid rising settler violence in the West Bank. For many Palestinians, this is a very surprising experience, Salman says. Young people in the West Bank today "haven't seen anything except separation walls, checkpoints and settler violence," which makes it difficult for them to picture an alternative, she says.

"What they know about the other is either like an Israeli soldier with a uniform and a gun, or a violent settler burning their villages and their cars and harming their fields and animals. So when they meet activists, especially on the ground, at protests and [providing a protective presence] at the olive harvest, they see something completely different. They have really interesting conversations, and it's important to learn about the other's narrative, because it's not something we learn at school."

The separation between the two peoples isn't just physical, "it's also in the mind, so to give them that safe space for people to come together and have dialogues and sharing and reflection – it's very important," Salman says.

The demonstration last August. The sign at center in red reads "We oppose the occupation." Credit: Itai Ron

Protecting futures

Abie Troen, an Israeli-American documentary filmmaker, is a part of this new wave of Israelis doing joint Israeli-Palestinian work. The youngest of six children, Troen is grieving his sister Deborah Troen Matias and her husband Shlomi Matias, who were murdered on October 7 at Kibbutz Holit. They left behind three children, all teenagers at the time. Abie says he hasn't fully processed the loss.

"I still don't always realize that she's dead, which is odd, considering she was murdered in such a public way, but it takes me a moment every time to speak about her in the past tense," he says. After his loss, he joined the Families Forum and will be attending the joint Memorial Day ceremony on Monday.

Both his sister and her husband were musicians; they co-founded a Jewish-Arab school in Be'er Sheva, where Shlomi taught music. Their two daughters and son studied there, in Arabic and Hebrew. Shlomi was also known in Be'er Sheva for his musical contributions to the anti-government protests.

"With them now gone, the big question looms: What would they have wanted?" Troen says. "I look at my nieces and nephew. In addition to dealing with the enormous personal baggage of witnessing their parents being murdered in front of them and losing their home – all at the end of their teens – each found a way to be involved politically, speaking out against the current government.

"And even though they'll never know what their mom and dad would have wanted, they have to listen to their own voice and feel like they're continuing in their footsteps."

When asked if he sees joining this Israeli-Palestinian initiative as something that Deborah and Shlomi would have wanted, he says he'll never know.

"I'll put it this way: In my sister's and brother-in-law's final moments, my sister told my nephew to lie down between the bed and the wall where the spare mattress was," he says. "She covered him with her body and then basically waited to die, to be murdered. They both were killed, not knowing if their children would survive.

"You have to ask yourself, in those moments, what would they have wanted? Would they have wanted us to avenge them? I sometimes play it back, wondering. What I do know is that they would have wanted their children to be safe, and they would have wanted their children to live, and they would have wanted their children to have a better life."

The ways to do that are varied. "It can be protection. It can be finding ways of fighting fundamentalists like Hamas. It can be humanizing Palestinians and building bridges," Troen says.

"I want to protect the future of Palestinian children, and the future of my nieces and nephew. I think that protecting that human value and protecting them in a very practical way is why I've joined the forum, and why I think it's so important."