Two Years After October 7th, Grief Unites Palestinians and Israelis

Two years after one of the region’s darkest days, a small, determined group refuses to let grief harden into hate. Bridges are being built between people who once saw only enemies across the border.

Left: Israelis hold photos of starving Palestinian children. Right: a Palestinian man holds a photo of one of the murdered Bibas brothers amid the rubble in solidarity.

In August of last year, protesters gathered in the heart of Tel Aviv, holding bags of flour. Not signs about ceasefires or slogans about peace, just flour as a somber emblem to the starvation unfolding in Gaza. Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel stood side by side, forcing the cameras to capture what many preferred not to see.

This was called the “Flour Protest.” Two years after the attacks on October 7, 2023, it represents something that has become both rarer and more urgent: the choice to see each other as human beings. As people worthy of dignity and respect, even while the world continuously tells you to hate one another.

As the death toll continues to rise, grief spans both sides. Israeli families mourning the victims of terror, and Palestinian families enduring the war’s relentless devastation. On university campuses, social media, and around dinner tables, deep-seated polarization appears to be entrenched. You must pick a side. Any attempt at nuance is treated as betrayal.

I’ve spent the past two years involved in this kind of work, watching how it affects people on the ground. Without it, dehumanization takes hold, paving the way for the next atrocity. These organizations are the antidote, offering proof that another path exists.

October 7 was a wake-up call. For Israelis, it shattered the illusion that the conflict could be managed indefinitely or just forgotten. For Palestinians, it showed how cycles of violence harm their own aspirations. For both, it revealed the uncomfortable truth that their fates are intertwined—and the current path serves no one.

October 7, 2023, marked one of the darkest days in Israel’s history. Hamas’s assault killed roughly 1,200 people and tore through communities with unimaginable violence. Of the 251 hostages taken into Gaza that day, 48 remain held two years later—and just 20 are believed to be still alive. As of late September 2025, over 66,000 Palestinians have been killed according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, including more than 19,000 children.

A brief ceasefire between January and March 2025 collapsed after Israel launched surprise airstrikes, reigniting heavy bombardment across Gaza. Since then, the conflict has escalated, with international agencies confirming famine conditions in Gaza City.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are putting forward a new ceasefire and peace framework, but negotiations remain ongoing, mired by mistrust and political divisions. Hamas has yet to accept the proposal, and questions remain over whether it will agree to the terms. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen, and prospects for a lasting political resolution continue to be uncertain.

Hamas, Israel, and the US began talks in Egypt yesterday aimed toward finalizing the deal. We will see over the coming days if the end of the war is near.

In the meantime, Israelis and Palestinians have had enough.

Across borders, fatigue has set in. Yet a small but growing number of people are finding ways to connect despite everything that divides them.

---

Standing Together

Standing Together is an Israeli-Palestinian grassroots movement that organizes Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel for peace, equality, and social justice. Before October 7, the organization had been building slowly, organizing protests against settlement expansion, joint cultural events, and workers’ rights advocacy. The work was important but marginal, operating on the fringes of Israeli society while the right-wing government consolidated its power. Membership had dwindled to a few hundred.

Everything changed after October 7. Within weeks, membership surged to over 6,000, with nearly 4,000 members making monthly donations. The stakes became existential as extremists in power actively tried to shut down organizations committed to building bridges. Palestinian activists faced similar restrictions and dangers.

Ori, the International Relations Director for Standing Together, didn’t mince words: “Following October 7, there has been an emergency for our work. The past two years have raised the stakes.” These stakes are no longer abstract as the movement’s actions now carry the weight of potentially securing a ceasefire and saving lives. As Ori put it, “We feel what is on our shoulders.”

Standing Together has held steadfast in its commitment over the past two years. When videos of starvation in Gaza emerged, it organized the Flour Protest, bringing people from all over the country and forcing Israeli media to finally provide media coverage.

Then something unexpected happened. Starting in April 2025, hundreds of Israelis began standing in silent vigils in Tel Aviv, holding photographs of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. Israeli police tried to ban the images, but public outcry forced them to back down. The protesters stood quietly, mourning the lost children whose faces rarely appear in Israeli media.

One protester named Itai, holding a photo of a Palestinian boy named Mahmoud, cried as he explained: “Before I would march with photos of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and now I go with his.” He was referring to the Bibas brothers (nine months and four years old when kidnapped on October 7), whose bodies were returned to Israel in February 2025 along with their mother, Shiri. As a father, Itai said, he couldn’t distinguish between Israeli or Palestinian child victims.

In July 2025, photos began circulating on Israeli social media that stunned many observers: three men standing amid Gaza’s rubble, each holding photographs of the Bibas brothers. The Gaza Youth Committee had recently launched a campaign called “We Live Together, We Die Together,” reciprocating the spirit of the Israeli protests.

“We’ve seen them raise photos of Palestinian children, and we want to say clearly: We, too, are against the killing of Israeli children,” one organizer explained. The gesture was extraordinary, not just for what it said but for what it risked. Members of the Gaza Youth Committee have faced arrest by Hamas in the past for organizing meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. Yet there they were, amid ongoing war and rubble, holding up photos of Israeli children to declare shared humanity.

This is what real solidarity looks like. Not agreement on politics or history, but recognition that a child’s death is a tragedy regardless of which side they’re born on. Israelis holding photos of Palestinian children while still demanding the return of the hostages. Palestinians in Gaza risking arrest to hold photos of Israeli children while their own homes lie in rubble. Both refusing to let war turn them into the monsters their leaders want them to be.

Standing Together went beyond symbolic protest. In August 2024, they launched a humanitarian aid campaign that mobilized tens of thousands of Palestinians and Jews across Israel, collecting over 400 trucks worth of food and aid for Gaza. When far-right Israeli settlers began attacking these convoys, Standing Together created the “Humanitarian Guard,” with activists physically accompanying trucks through checkpoints like Tarqumiyah to ensure they reached Gaza. Until Standing Together launched this guard, Israeli police did little to stop the attacks. The guards’ presence ensured all trucks got through.

The challenge extends beyond organizing protests and protecting aid. Ori describes what he calls the “two apartments” problem: “One apartment is a Jewish family who watches Israeli media and sees one side of the story, and an Arab family living in the next apartment watching Al Jazeera or whatever national broadcaster that shows the other side of the story.” These are neighbors, sometimes, who “do not agree on facts, let alone the analysis of these facts.”

Standing Together’s response is to go directly to the people who disagree. “We talk to them with patience, empathy, and the ability to hold complexity,” Ori says. Their goals for 2026 include broadening the coalition demanding a ceasefire, stopping the war in Gaza, and countering the dehumanization of Palestinian society within Israeli communities. The organization has also built a global network of Friends of Standing Together groups in the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Australia, and across Europe, amplifying international pressure for change.

The work produces tangible results. Standing Together’s Humanitarian Guard hasn’t just escorted aid trucks; it has ensured that every single truck passing through the Tarqumiyah checkpoint reached Gaza. Their presence forced Israeli police to finally act against settler attacks. In June 2024, the US State Department officially sanctioned Tsav 9, the right-wing Israeli group blocking aid, categorizing it as a “violent extremist” organization. This happened partly because Standing Together’s activism made the attacks impossible to ignore.

When Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi proposed dissolving the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation in early 2023, Standing Together launched a campaign against it. Karhi froze the proposal, which the movement considered a victory in its efforts to protect independent media. Their silent vigils with photos of Palestinian children initially faced a police ban, but public outcry forced authorities to back down, establishing the right to mourn across divides.

The “It’s Time” coalition they helped build now unites 60 Israeli peace organizations, creating coordination that previously didn’t exist. In the 2024 municipal elections, Standing Together activists launched independent political groups in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, bringing their message directly into local politics. They’re building infrastructure for long-term change.

---

The Parents Circle Families Forum

Before October 7, the Parents Circle Families Forum had been doing the impossible for years: bringing together bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families. They ran summer camps where teenagers who’d lost relatives to the conflict spent weeks together. They held joint meetings where families from both sides shared their grief and sorrow. Palestinian families traveled to Israel. Israeli families went to the West Bank. They spoke at schools, showing students that the “enemy” had a face, a story, a family.

The organization exists in a terrible paradox: they never want new members because membership requires someone losing a family member. After October 7, things got complicated. They started with separate gatherings, with Israeli staff in one room and Palestinian staff in another, just trying to understand what happened. Three families left, unable to continue.

But the work persisted by necessity. The summer camps they’d run for 16 or 17 years in Israel became impossible because the current Israeli government won’t allow them. So they moved the camp to Cyprus. Palestinian families from the West Bank still cannot enter Israel. Israelis were unable to go to the West Bank for almost a year and a half. Programs that once unfolded naturally across the land now require crossing international borders.

They also gained new members. Families who lost someone on October 7 began joining, including the son of Vivian Silver, an elderly Israeli woman tragically killed in the attack. Palestinian families from the West Bank and Gaza joined too. “We are not keen to get new members because to be a member, you have to lose someone from your family in the conflict,” Vered Berman, an Israeli peace activist, explains. “We do not want more people to lose their loved ones.”

Berman’s mother was killed by Hamas during the Second Intifada in a suicide bombing. Yet she listens to stories from Palestinians who lost loved ones in the West Bank or Gaza. “It is impossible not to open your heart and feel sorry for them, and respect that those people chose to say no one deserves this pain; we do not want more violence.” She feels more connected to these grieving Palestinians than to Israelis who “choose to close their eyes on the crimes they see.”

She chose this path not despite losing her mother to Hamas but because of it, transforming that loss into a determination that no one else should suffer the same fate. “We do not cover for any side’s violence; we condemn it,” she says. “But we get people who were harmed and still do not want to choose the path of violence.” For her and other members, solidarity means doing “everything in their power to stop” the violence, regardless of which side perpetrates it.

---

Pushback Against Peace

Both organizations face fierce criticism. Not just from right-wing Israelis who see them as traitors, but also from some pro-Palestinian activists who accuse them of “normalization.” The BDS movement’s Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has called for boycotting Standing Together, arguing that working with Israelis who don’t support all Palestinian rights undermines the liberation struggle.

This criticism reached an absurd peak in March 2025 when PACBI condemned “No Other Land,” the Oscar-winning documentary about Israeli demolitions in Masafer Yatta made by Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. The film exposed Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages, won international acclaim, and forced global attention on occupation violence. Yet PACBI declared it violated “anti-normalization guidelines” because Palestinians and Israelis made it together.

The residents of Masafer Yatta, the very people the film documents, rejected this criticism. Nidal Younis, head of the village council, told +972 Magazine: “The pros outweigh the cons, and the film should not be boycotted. It tells our story, the Palestinian story... Yuval is a true partner.” Another village leader, Jihad Al-Nawaja, said she didn’t know “what the BDS people are talking about,” noting that Israeli co-director Abraham was “far more Palestinian than most of these online commentators attacking him.”

This reveals the fundamental flaw in purist approaches to activism: prioritizing ideological purity over actual impact. A film that brings international attention to Palestinian suffering, which won an Oscar and forced conversations about occupation, was boycotted because Jews and Palestinians made it together. Organizations doing the most challenging work on the ground get dismissed because they dare to organize across the divide.

Critics will always find something to attack in work like this. Extremists on both sides have their reasons to dismiss bridge-building efforts.

---

Never Give Up

But I’ve seen the transformative power of this approach. I was once more radical in my views, seeing the “other side” as a monolithic entity, an ideology to oppose. Through discourse and genuine engagement, I came to see people as unique individuals with their own stories, fears, and hopes. This isn’t unique to me; I’ve witnessed many people undergo similar transformations. When you create spaces for dialogue, when you allow people to hear each other’s stories without the filter of propaganda or fear, sympathy and understanding can take root even in the hardest soil.

A common and fair criticism: Israel has state power, Palestinians don’t. Israel controls borders, airspace, and resources. This isn’t a conflict between equals, and framing it as “both sides” can obscure this structural inequality.

This is true. And these organizations don’t deny it. Standing Together explicitly opposes the occupation and calls for Palestinian independence. Parents Circle Forum condemns Israeli policies that harm Palestinians.

However, what they recognize is that power asymmetry doesn’t alter the fact that both peoples live on the same land and must find a way to coexist. Israeli state power hasn’t brought security; it’s produced endless war. Palestinian violence hasn’t brought liberation; it’s brought more suffering. The asymmetry doesn’t mean Israelis and Palestinians can’t work together to demand change. In fact, when Israelis use their relative privilege and access to challenge their own government’s policies alongside Palestinians, that can be more effective than either group acting alone.

The question isn’t whether power is equal. It’s whether solidarity across that divide can help shift the conditions that create the inequality in the first place.

Real solidarity isn’t about two sides agreeing on everything or denying the suffering of the other side. It’s about creating conditions where people can have whatever conversation they need without fear. It’s about disagreeing, even sharply, without dehumanizing one another, so resolution becomes possible. It’s about seeing the person across from you as a human being first—and an Israeli or Palestinian second.

This isn’t naive optimism. These organizations face community backlash, government restrictions, and the practical impossibility of maintaining relationships across militarized borders. They’ve lost members who couldn’t sustain the work after October 7. But what makes their approach credible is what makes it difficult: they’re insiders, not outsiders. Berman’s mother was killed by Hamas. Standing Together members risk being seen as traitors. They face real stakes—loved ones lost, communities fractured, and futures uncertain.

October 7 made coexistence much harder. No one is denying that. But it also made it more urgent by showing the catastrophic costs of the current trajectory. Two years later, Standing Together grew from a few hundred members to over 6,000. Their humanitarian aid campaign mobilized tens of thousands. Parents Circle Forum gained new members from October 7 families choosing peace over revenge.

They need political will to catch up with grassroots courage. They need visible victories: ceasefires that hold, hostages and prisoners released, humanitarian corridors that function. They need international communities to protect the space for dialogue rather than demand ideological purity.

This matters because the alternative (continued polarization, dehumanization, violence) benefits only those who profit from endless conflict. The vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians simply want security, dignity, and a future for their children.

Two years after October 7, real solidarity looks like Israelis and Palestinians holding photos of each other’s children and refusing to look away. It looks like activists protecting aid trucks from extremist attacks. It looks like choosing, again and again, to build connections when everything suggests they’ll collapse.

The moderates building these bridges may not see the fruits of their labor for a long time. But they’re showing that even in the darkest chapters, human agency persists. Their work isn’t naive idealism. It’s strategic realism rooted in recognizing that both peoples’ fates are intertwined.

History shows us that peace processes often seem impossible until suddenly they’re not. But they require people willing to do the impossible work. Two years after October 7, that work continues. The question is whether enough of us will support it before it’s too late.

Middle East Uncovered is powered by Ideas Beyond Borders. The views expressed in Middle East Uncovered are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ideas Beyond Borders.