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Bereaved Israeli Tamar Pikes, whose brother and father both died while serving in the Israel Defense Forces, speaks at the Joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony near Bethlehem on Tuesday, April 13, 2021 (Credit: Ghassan Bannoura/Combatants For Peace)
In a quiet courtyard near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families and their supporters gathered on Tuesday night, Israel’s Memorial Day, to call for reconciliation and an end to the conflict.
“We are entangled, drowning in a cycle of violence and pain and fear. Some of us cannot see that there is a way out of the bloody cycle. I believe it is possible: through mutual recognition, through understanding, through equal rights,” said Tamar Pikes, who lost both her father and her brother in Israel’s wars with its Arab neighbors.