Peace activists in Israel and Palestine keep hope for peace alive despite conflict

Hopes for any form of long-lasting peace between Israel and Palestine were already fading when Hamas launched its murderous rampage on 7 October 2023, triggering a military response from Israel that has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Gaza alone.

The militant group first took control of the Gaza Strip in 2006 and since then has entrenched itself in an increasingly extreme ideology.

Israeli governments, meanwhile, have tended to the right and then the extreme right. The population of Israeli settlements in the West Bank — considered yasa dışı under international law — has increased by 200% since 2000, often with the explicit approval of the authorities.

In the aftermath of everything that has happened since the 7 October attack, a poll found that almost three-quarters of Israelis think peace between Israel and Palestine can never be achieved. Among Palestinians in the West Bank, the number is closer to 80%.

Now, US President Donald Trump is suggesting that the embattled territory might be “turned over to the United States by Israel” and its 2 million residents “relocated”. Israel, meanwhile, is echoing Trump’s threat that “all hell will break out” if all 73 remaining hostages aren’t released by 15 February, further making the prospects of a lasting peace seem more distant than ever. 

Yet as the world waits with bated breath to see what will happen next in Gaza, many activists in Israel and Palestine are still pushing for peace — often in the face of intense criticism and deep personal loss.

Tours, not terror

Although Maoz Inon’s childhood was spent in kibbutzim just kilometres from the Gaza border, he says it took leaving Israel to bring him to the peace movement.

“By the age of 30, I’d travelled around the world twice, but I realised that I don’t even have one Palestinian friend,” he told Euronews. “I was living in total segregation.”

In 2005, he set up Abraham hostels and tour group, a series of desegregated accommodations starting in Nazareth, and also ran tours in Israel and occupied Palestinian Territories, hoping to cross deep divisions in the region.

“Abraham is the father of monotheistic religions,” he explained his thinking behind the name of his business. The hostels have since been visited by world leaders including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

When Hamas gunmen stormed out of Gaza on 7 October 2023, among those killed were Inon’s parents.

“I was drowning in an ocean of sorrow and pain,” Inon told Euronews in an emotional interview. “I was losing myself.”

However, not even the trauma of his parents’ murder could shake his belief in peace, he says, explaining that his family “don’t want to avenge the death of our parents. It won’t bring them back.

“The cycle of violence, of hate, of fear, of revenge and bloodshed didn’t start on 7 October. It started about a century ago,” Inon said.

Part of his faith came from conversations with friends, especially Aziz Abu Saleh, who knew all too well the cost of ongoing conflict.

Aziz and his brother grew up in al-Eizariya, a town in the occupied West Bank. His older brother was arrested without charge and died after almost a year spent incarcerated in Israeli security prisons.

“He was tortured for almost two weeks until he confessed,” Abu Saleh said, “by the time he got out of prison he basically was a dead man walking.”

There are currently 9,600 Palestinians in Israeli security prisons, almost 5,000 detained without charge.

After years of wanting revenge, Abu Saleh enrolled in Hebrew classes at age 18, where he says he met Israeli civilians for the first time. It completely changed his perspective.

“I realised that the whole division of Israeli versus Palestinian is basically wrong, that the division should be those of us who are for justice and those who are not there yet,” he tells Euronews.

Like Inon, Abu Saleh set up an alternative tourism company, Mejdi, which aims to highlight the possibility of peace. However, he acknowledges that 7 October “put the peace movement to a test that it’s still going through.”

“I’ve seen people I’ve known on the Israeli side being hardcore pro-war,” he said. “I’ve seen Palestinians who were peace activists who kind of were like, ‘Well, they deserved it’”.

But Abu Saleh puts the survival of the movement down to the determination and courage of friends like Inon.

“I think without those individuals, the peace movement would have been dead today,” he says. 

For Inon, there is ample precedent for peace in Israel and Palestine. “We are standing on the shoulders of the founding nations of the EU, who realised that in order to prevent a third world war, they must make the enemies of the past into the partners of the future.”

Soldier, saviour: Eszter and Rana

When Eszter Koranyi moved to Israel 12 years ago, she says she “didn’t know much about it.” But after learning more about the country, she decided to settle there.

“I made the decision that if I’m staying, I want to make this place equal for everyone,” she told Euronews.

Koranyi joined the Combatants for Peace movement, where she met Rana Salman, a Bethlehem native.

Although neither are veterans, they became co-directors of the organisation, which was set up by ex-fighters and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.

Despite their commitment to egalitarianism, both understand the inherent power imbalance. “We acknowledge that there are power dynamics and the relationship between occupier and occupied,” admits Salman.

Koranyi echoes the point, adding she doesn’t “want to take for granted that me being Jewish gives me a privilege of living here as a free citizen”.

A few days after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Combatants for Peace held a Zoom call with all those involved in its activities, the prospect of which had caused both Salman and Koranyi anxiety.

“We had very hard conversations,” Koranyi told Euronews, describing how hard it was “just to be there and listen when someone is questioning if there was the rape of women or if innocent people were killed” on 7 October.

“It is unfortunately also a conversation that we now see for a long time other way around, with Israelis questioning what is happening in Gaza,” she pointed out.

They have been vilified for their cross-community work by both Israelis and Palestinians, but like Inon and Abu Saleh, they are determined to continue.

“I know that we are still a minority and still have so much work to do,” Salman concluded. “But we don’t have the privilege of losing hope”.