Encounter Point

One day George, his wife Najwa and their two daughters were driving home from the supermarket in Bethlehem. Israeli soldiers opened fire on their car, killing twelve-year-old Christine. George spent three days unconscious in intensive care with nine bullet wounds, while his wife buried Christine without him. Less than a year later, George joined hundreds of other Palestinian and Israeli families in the Bereaved Families Forum working together for reconciliation, and against violence and occupation.

Aziz lives in the Palestinian city of Tulkarem, where he grew up in the local refugee camp. A social worker, Aziz is dedicated to improving the lives of Palestinian children. Believing that Palestinian and Israeli children benefit from meeting together and learning about each other's lives, Aziz became the co-founder of the Windows youth organization's center in Tulkarem. Though the Israeli army hasn't granted him a permit to enter Israel for years, Aziz communicates with the Israeli staff daily and hosts them when they come to Tulkarem.

For most of his life Shlomo lived in Allon Shevut, an Israeli settlement near Bethlehem. As a youth, he actively supported a political party that advocated deporting Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries, until a religious Jewish mentor convinced him that Israel's continued occupation and settlement of Palestinian territory endangers its future.

In 2002 a Palestinian sniper killed a group of Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Robi's son David was one of them. Robi is haunted by the loss of her son, and the knowledge that he was posted to defend an Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to which he was politically opposed. After David was killed, Robi joined the Bereaved Families Forum. She speaks in support of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation throughout Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and internationally.