Two men, both clad in black jackets and blue jeans, stood on stage politely gesturing at the other to start. Magen Inon and Hamze Awawde grew up on opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but they came together to call for peace at a vigil outside Downing Street.
At the gathering, faith leaders and politicians joined grieving families “in the first mass event of its kind” since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7.
Inon, an Israeli, described how his parents were among the 1,200 murdered that day. “Their house was directly hit by a shoulder rocket and the house burned down completely with my parents in it,” he said. “We pray that they did not suffer in the last moments. The only consolation I have is that they died together, inseparable in life and death.”
Inon grew up with four siblings in the south of Israel in one of the villages closest to the Gaza Strip. His “revenge” for the killing, he said, would be to “start building everything the terrorists set up to destroy that day”.
“To move forward, we should recognise the suffering and the loss of innocent lives on both sides and also recognise the fear and legitimate concerns of both Israelis and Palestinians who want a secure life and freedom,” he said. “The only possible revenge of my parents is to set aside fear and hate and to be hopeful that a better future is possible.”
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Awawde, a Palestinian from Ramallah, a city in the West Bank, spoke about his grandfather, who lost his lands in 1948 and was killed attempting to recover them by force. “He chose to fight and sacrifice himself so Palestinians will have a better future,” he said.
“And here we are, 50 years after; every year got worse and worse … The violence we used so far did not work. It’s not smart. They call us naive … I think we are not naive because peace needs brave people, needs courage, needs hard work. That’s why not many people are doing it.”
The men, who met for the first time at the vigil, were speaking two days after the week-long truce between Israel and Hamas came to an end on Friday when airstrikes resumed. Palestinian officials have reported hundreds of deaths since.
Robi Damelin, whose son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper in 2002, described how Israeli and Palestinian lives “are so intertwined”. Her organisation, the Parents Circle, works to bring families together on both sides of the divide. “I was so happy when I thought I would be here during a ceasefire,” she said. “And look what happened.”
Other speakers included Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury; Rabbi David Mason, who is executive director of the charity HIAS+JCORE; and the Oxford-based imam Monawar Hussain, as well as the MPs Layla Moran, Stella Creasy and Tobias Ellwood.
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The event was organised in part by Brendan Cox, the husband of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, who said he wanted to “give voices to the vast majority of the British public who are too often drowned out, who mourn the life of an Israeli child as much as a Palestinian child”.
Several of the attendees The Times spoke to said it was the first time they had felt comfortable to take part in a protest of this kind since October 7. One attendee who has friends in Israel and the West Bank, who declined to be named, said she had wanted to attend both demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and protests in solidarity with Israelis but felt the atmosphere was “too divisive”.
“There would have been some people marching on those demonstrations with whom I wouldn’t have felt a very strong affiliation and perhaps I actually would have been rather horrified by their views,” she said. “My feeling, really, in terms of the whole conflict, is that Hamas and the settlers should take it outside.”
Anita Sheva, 48, a teacher, said she had similarly been put off going to other protests which seemed “too confrontational”. She had no connection to the region but said that the issue “touched everyone”.
