RONI KEIDAR HAS been involved in peacebuilding efforts in Israel and Palestine for many years. She is also a survivor of the 7 October attack.
Now, more than ever, she thinks dialogue is needed from both sides.
Roni (80) is part of Other Voice, an organisation of residents in southern Israel who advocate for dialogue with Palestinians in Gaza.
Speaking to The Journal, Roni said she has an advantage over many other Israelis in that she has met more people from “the other side”.
“I see the people as people, not just as an enemy. I could see their faces. I could see their smiles. I could see the look in their eyes. Most Israelis, especially the younger generation, don’t have that opportunity.”
Recalling her own childhood, she said she grew up thinking she “could do no wrong”.
When she was eight years old, in the 1950s, her family relocated from England to Israel. Her relatives had lived there for generations and viewed the country as their home.
“Growing up in Israel, going to school in Israel, being very familiar with our history and the Jewish history of the diaspora and the Holocaust and the establishment of a Jewish state for Jewish people, as far as I was concerned, I could do no wrong,” Roni told us.
As she got older, her views on the subject became more nuanced.
Roni’s husband, Ovadia, is Egyptian. The couple and their five children lived in Egypt for a few years when she was in her 40s.
It was during this time that Roni learned about the Nakba – the mass displacement of Palestinians from their land in 1947 and 1948 as the state of Israel was established post-World War II.
“When I was in Egypt, I was suddenly confronted for the first time with stories I really knew nothing about, about ’47 and about ’48.
All of a sudden I realised that my redemption was someone else’s disaster, and it made me very uncomfortable to say the least…
“I suddenly realised that it’s my home, admittedly, but not only my home. It is also a home of another people, and I can’t escape from that.”
Roni and her family have lived in Netiv HaAsara, an agriculture village at the northern border with the Gaza Strip, since the early 1980s.
She has seen much violence in the region over the years, noting how things took a turn for the worse in the 1990s when the blockade of the Gaza Strip began.
Prior to this, many Palestinians worked on Roni’s family’s farm and she says they had a “very good” relationship with their neighbours.
After Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel significantly intensified restrictions and imposed a complete blockade on the movement of goods and people in and out of the strip.
Roni said it was “very disturbing” to watch her friends in Gaza have their rights taken away, noting that people there have no way to leave via road, air or sea.
“You are literally locked in. When people say it’s the biggest prison on Earth, it was, let’s face it.
“And how can I expect people who grow up in surroundings like that, in an atmosphere like that, that it won’t smash back at me?”
Roni has been involved in peacebuilding efforts for many years.
When it became impossible for people to enter or leave Gaza, she started online drama and music workshops so young people from either side could (virtually) meet and get to know each other.
“If the screen wasn’t there, they’d be hugging one another. They seem to connect so well,” she explained.
Many of these young people attended the online sessions weekly for about three years, until two years ago.
Roni says Hamas infiltrated one of the calls and detained several of the Palestinians who took part. They were eventually released months later, but scared enough to not want to engage with the group anymore.
The workshops no longer take place.
Around 900 people lived in Netiv HaAsara when Hamas attacked the village, and other areas, on 7 October 2023 – a year ago tomorrow. At least 20 people were killed in Roni’s village.
“I woke up at 6.30, 6.25, to the sound of an alert that I knew meant that I had to run into the safe room. I realised that my husband wasn’t next to me in bed, and I thought that means that he’s gone down to the fields already.”
Luckily, he had already returned home. Three of their five children live in the village, and Roni started to make frantic phone calls to check they were ok.
“One of my daughters, she wasn’t answering, and eventually her son answered and said in a whisper, ‘We’re hiding in a closet because there’s terrorists in the house’.”
Roni says various members of their family said goodbye to another, in case it was the last time they spoke. Most of the family survived, but Roni’s daughter’s brother-in-law was killed.
Roni was on the phone to a close friend right before she too was killed.
“At one point, she said, ‘Roni, I think terrorists are coming into the house, don’t phone me’, and that was the last I heard of her… At one point we thought she was kidnapped, but she was killed.”
As well as losing her friend in Israel, she has also lost friends in Gaza in the last 12 months.
“We talk quite a lot. Those I don’t talk to [anymore], I’m afraid [they] might not be alive.”
Roni and her family have not returned to the village since the attack, staying in hotels and rented accommodation for the past year.
Hamas’ attack on Israel last October resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, official Israeli figures show. More than 240 hostages were taken, 97 of whom remain unaccounted for.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed around 41,000 people, according to the Gazan health ministry. Ceasefire talks in recent months have not made much progress, as the death toll increases.
Roni said, despite the trauma of 7 October, she still feels empathy for people living in Gaza and wants to help them – something some of her relatives and friends in Israel struggle to understand.
She has raised money for people online, noting: “I’m worried about my friends in Gaza… their conditions are terrible.”
Money cannot be sent from Israel directly into Gaza, so she has to first send it to someone in Europe or the US, who in turn sends it to people in Gaza.
“I find myself being scared, terrified for both of us. And I started getting WhatsApp messages from my friends in Gaza. ‘How are you? Please take care. We need you. We have to escape. We have to run.’
“And I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I knew that if I said too much, people here would be very upset with me.
“Someone from Israel said to me, a good friend, said, ‘Roni, I know where you stand, but not now, now you can’t help them’. I said, ‘but I know they need my help’.”
Roni has had disagreements with family members over her stance, but said she often reminds them, ‘Don’t forget that not all the Palestinians are Hamas’.
She said some Israelis think “that they are all bad and we are all good”, but this ‘them and us’ narrative helps no-one.
Roni said, on some level, Jewish people should understand the plight of Palestinians more than anyone else – due to their own mass displacement and the millions of lives lost in the horrors of the Holocaust.
In a way, I feel that we – as the Jewish people with the history that we have – should understand the Palestinians more than anyone else in the world.
“Because we know what it’s like to need a homeland, to feel [we have] one place in the world we belong and we can be safe. The Palestinian needs that as well.”
People on both sides fear for their lives and must come together to end the violence, she said. However, the future of the region is not solely up to them – those in power have different views and agendas.
Roni is not Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest fan. Like many Israelis, she disagrees with his handling of the conflict and failure to get many hostages freed.
“He has one thing on his mind, and that’s how he’ll get out of prison,” Roni said. “All the world over, we see that power is destructive.”
Roni said it’s terrifying to think that the lives of Israelis and Palestinians lie in the hands of Netanyahu’s government and Hamas respectively.
“They are ruling our lives. It depends on them what happens to us, whether we live or die. It’s a terrible thought.”
Roni fears for the future – particularly as the recent escalation in violence in Lebanon and Iran highlights the instability of the wider region – but still believes a two-state solution is the only way to restore peace in Israel and Palestine.
“It has to be possible, not only possible, it will be. I’m just sorry for all the years that are going by that it’s not happening, but we can’t go on like this.
“Are we going to go on killing one another until there’s no one left? And then it won’t be a question of either them or us, it will be neither them nor us. Is that the solution?
It’s in my bones that this is a land meant for both of us.
“We’ve got to sit down and plan a future. I’m not one of those who say we have no partners, I think we do have partners on the other side.
“If only we’d put this hate aside and we’d accept each other as justifiable citizens of this region.
“Then think of what this region would be like, with the history and culture, it would be a marvel. It would be a place that people will come to from all over the world.”
Roni is among those taking part in an event this week which aims to bring Israelis and Palestinians together. ‘The Day of Hope, The Day of Pain’ is due to take place at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
The conference has been organised by 22 Jewish and Arab organisations to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack as well as the huge loss of life which has happened since then.
“We’re going to talk about a lot of pain for both of us, both sides,” Roni said.
“The fact that we’ll be there together and listening to one another, is a step, it is an important step.
“And I hope we’ll find the voices that will join us and are strong enough to stand out and not let the radicals take over, because they’re destroying us all.”
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