The impact on lives of the Israel-Hamas war
Israeli-Palestinian Wars: Israel vs. Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and the Case of Hezbollah
The Israeli government doesn’t have a clean story in Gaza. This was always going to be the ugliest of Israeli-Palestinian wars since 1947, because Hamas had embedded itself in tunnels underneath Gazan homes, schools, mosques and hospitals. It could not be targeted without significant civilian casualties. I said from the beginning that Israel’s only option was to destroy Hamas in order to create something better, so it was doubly important to make the point that this wasn’t just a war to defend itself, but also to destroy Hamas in order to create something better.
It was the deadliest day in Israeli history. It sparked the deadliest war in Palestinian history. One year later, it has grown into a regional war. Every day is new to us.
Iran is telling a story. That it has some right under the U.N. Charter to help create failed states in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq so it can cultivate proxies inside them for the purpose of destroying Israel? Hezbollah dragged down Lebanon into a war with Israel that the government had no say in and is now paying a huge price for it.
The Israeli Internal Crisis: When Do We Have to Leave Israel? What Do We Want to See? Why Do We Need Us? Why Israel Shouldn’t Want to Escape? How Israel Should Think?
Thousands of Israelis with the means to do so have chosen to leave Israel since Oct. 7; others are considering or planning emigrating. After a brief pause, the protests resumed with a focus on the hostage crisis and demands for early and thousands of other people have also taken to the streets. In September, images of the former Israeli army chief of staff Dan Halutz being forcibly removed by the police from the street at a sit-in in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence, and of relatives of hostages being roughed up by law enforcement officers, were a further manifestation of the internal crisis.
The messages are indicative of what Israelis are questioning themselves, what is the worth of a Jewish homeland if it doesn’t prioritize or give up on saving lives in the event of war. Will I ever feel safe again? And what kind of future do I have here if the only vision our leaders are offering is endless war?
At one of the recent mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for a hostage deal and for early elections to replace the Israeli government, one protester held up a sign reading: “Who are we without them?” referring to the hostages. There are some signs that read, “Give me one reason to raise kids here.”
Merav was the sister of a former Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, who counseled the kibbutz members all year long.
Silence is what helped keep the survivors of this small community alive the day of the attack. Silence is what they used to hide from their safe rooms to a hotel on the Dead Sea.
Hamas launched an attack on Israel a year ago, killing over 1200 people and taking hostages. The war in Palestine was the worst in history. According to the Gaza health ministry, at least 41,000 people in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and fire. Now, Israel is bombing Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Israeli village grieving the biggest loss from Oct. 7-kebbutz — Beeri-hamas attack-anniversary
“I’m so exhausted after every funeral that we have to deal with again,” said Gal Cohen, the head of the kibbutz. We cry again because it brings back everything.
This tight-knit Israeli community near the Gaza border is digging up its dead from temporary graves further away and reburying them back home, where it is safer to gather now, a year into the Gaza war.
Then she saw the man she had heard all day loading gun cartridges in her home. He was sitting outside, she says, stripped naked by orders of the military, and guarded by an Israeli soldier.
She found her living room floor covered with grenades, gas canisters, explosives and rifles when she finally got out of her safe room. She understood. Her home had been turned into an attack headquarters. Neighbors all around her were gunned down.
He says that others who survived the attack are taking sleeping pills to deal with the trauma and can’t bear seeing the destroyed homes. “I believe we’ll have to take them all down in the end.”
A short walk away, though, are the homes that were attacked last year. Bullet holes, shattered windows, a pair of children’s shoes in the debris: Oct. 7 frozen in time.
Reburying a deceased family member in Kibbutz Be’eri with a local community, starting at the time of reburial
A couple hundred families have moved back to Kibbutz Be’eri. Cohen is working to get the residents back in two and a half years.
“I really thought about it. And then I decided that I wanted to continue to live,” she said. She is learning how to kayak so that she can face her fears. I do everything to give meaning to life after they’re gone.
She wanted to be with his body at the moment it was unearthed. She felt guilty she couldn’t be with her family in the most important moment in their lives on October 7.
Batya Ofir went to the funeral. She decided to rebury her brother and his family in the kibbutz cemetery after viewing his body be exhumed from its temporary grave.
At Kibbutz Be’eri, one recent afternoon, teens and parents walked quietly out of the neighborhood cemetery after a funeral for a mother and her 15-year-old son — two of the many reburials of recent months.
How many Israelis were killed or missing in Be’eri? “Tomorrow we will die,” Sharon Roth tells a boy in Gaza
At the beginning of the guidelines I gave to the therapists in Be’eri, I asked how they were. Because these people don’t know that it still matters. You have to show them that their wellbeing is still relevant. The life instinct wants to see that someone calls him back.”
They are very worried about the future of this place. Many of them leave the country. They were told by their parents that in the Holocaust, people who didn’t leave died. “Hopelessness and helplessness are so strong. The trauma is national.”
A kibbutz has a boy who lost all of his family in a house fire. Do we tell him about them individually or do we talk about them all together? she says.
Roth has also counseled former hostages who returned from Hamas captivity in Gaza, families whose loved ones were killed in captivity, and Israelis who didn’t experience a personal loss but still suffer from sleeping difficulties, anxiety attacks and depression.
It took many weeks to account for everyone: who was dead, who was captive in Gaza. In the basement of the Dead Sea hotel, the secretary read the names of the 27 identified bodies and the 98 people who are still missing.
When the Israeli military eventually published its investigation into the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, it found about 340 attackers had infiltrated the community and that it had taken about seven hours for significant numbers of Israeli forces to arrive to fight off the invasion there.
How a year of Israel-Hamas war disrupted lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters: Anas Baba’s story in Gaza
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He often meets a young girl named Habiba at the hospital in central Gaza. She was colorblind since birth. One day, she told Anas she saw a man drowning with water coming out of his nose. It was blood, and it wasn’t water.
Anas Baba is a reporter for NPR in Gaza. Again and again, he has videotaped bodies brought into the morgue after Israeli airstrikes. He watches silently as the bodies of people are laid out, and trained his camera on young children.
Batya Ofir, a woman who worked for me was with Itay at the Israeli village that suffered the greatest loss, called Kibbutz Be’eri. Her brother was killed along with his family. She felt bad, and asked herself if she wanted to live.
Source: How a year of Israel-Hamas war disrupted lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters
The Battle of the Michigan War: The Israel-Hamas War, the Middle East, and the West Bank (How a Year of Israel-Michigan-Voters Annihilated Lives)
Vice President Harris has a good shot of becoming the next president because of his home state of Michigan. But the victory won’t be easy. Harris and former President Donald Trump remain in a close battle. Key factors that could decide which way Michigan swings are listed below.
People in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank tell us how this war has changed their lives. NPR has a special series page where you can find coverage of this anniversary.
The war in the Middle East is personal in the swing state of Michigan. The GOP and Democrats are focused on the Arab and Muslim American voting bloc, and the state has the largest Lebanese American population in the country. Families in Lebanon are currently being bombed, and many have families in the state.
A new report has found that both Harris’ and Trump’s economic plans would increase the national debt. According to the nonpartisan nonprofit Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, Trump’s plan would add an estimated $7.5 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next decade, while Harris’ proposals would cost the government an estimated $3.5 trillion. The committee is worried about a fiscal crisis if politicians do not take action to reduce the national debt. Let’s take a closer look at the details of both economic plans.
Source: How a year of Israel-Hamas war disrupted lives. And, key factors for Michigan voters
Morning Edition: A New Perspective on Voting in the Key States of the Early 2000-2011 Republican Electoral Cycle: The Michigan House of Representatives
NPR is visiting six key swing states that will likely decide this year’s historic election. Morning Edition is in Michigan this week to listen to voters as they decide whether or not to vote.