Published: 20 May 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
People from both sides of the conflict reflect on their fears for loved ones in the Middle-East and sadness at the violence
AYMAN* HAS BEEN anxiously waiting by the phone to hear if his loved ones back home are still alive.
He left his parents, three brothers, and six sisters behind in the Gaza strip when he came to Australia eight years ago, but not a day goes by he doesn't think of them. He asked to remain anonymous to protect his family in Gaza.
Finding it difficult to articulate the words to describe his pain, Ayman tells the ABC his family say the bombing in Gaza is "beyond imagination and beyond words".
Jewish-Australian historian Jordy Silverstein is "terrified" about what's to come from the escalating tensions.
Dr Silverstein, 38, who's the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, believes what Israel is doing to Palestinians is "unacceptable", and the situation is "bad for everyone".
"The fact that Israelis are dying is part of why I say that the current violence won't bring safety or peace to Israel," she said.
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), which he says speaks for the broad mainstream Jewish-Australian society, has been glued to the news and social media, waiting to hear from friends and relatives.
"[They're] worried about their children, worried about their families hunkered down in bomb shelters," he said.
He says because of the rockets fired by Palestinian militant group Hamas, "Israel has no choice but to retaliate and civilian casualties are therefore an inevitability".
Mr Ryvchin said as a Jewish-Australian who had spent time in Israel, he had sympathy for the Palestinian people but "no sympathy for the Palestinian leadership".
