‘Most people are in such pain they can’t see pain on the other side’

Grieving the loss of her son on October 7, Elana Kaminka is also concerned for her Palestinian neighbours. If you want people to acknowledge your pain, she says, start by acknowledging theirs.

Second Lieutenant Yannai Kaminka, who was killed on October 7 while staving off Hamas’s attack on Gaza border communities, was raised by parents who live according to the principle, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”.

In the case of Yannai’s mother, Elana Kamina, the neighbours in question are Palestinians, especially the residents of Wadi Fukin village situated in a valley beneath the sprawling town of Tzur Hadassah where she lives.

“They are our neighbours. How could you have a good life if you aren’t considerate of your neighbours?” she asked in an interview at her home, during which she sharply criticised authorities for demolishing Wadi Fukin houses during the current war.

Her concern for Palestinians is rare now. Israelis, reeling from the Hamas onslaught, have become far more afraid of Arabs and aggressive in their thinking of how to relate to them. There is a wide tendency to generalise that all Arabs, and not just Hamas, pose a threat.

Yannai, who was 20, died a hero’s death on October 7, when about 1200 Israelis were killed by Hamas, some in gruesome fashion. The vast majority of victims on the deadliest day in Israeli history were civilians. The Hamas invasion triggered a devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has seen even its allies strongly criticise Israel.

Yannai was killed after helping to save the lives of newly drafted soldiers under his command by sending them to a shelter for relative safety. Yannai thought the new soldiers did not have enough training to participate in the battle so he and other officers and sergeants took up posts in place of their subordinates and fought in defence of the Zikim army base without them, Kaminka explained. Only one Hamas militant got through to the base and the adjacent Kibbutz Zikim was unscathed.

In speaking with Kaminka, 49, a marketing writer and an executive board member of the Tag Meir group that seeks to counter violent extremism, one taps into the origins of Yannai’s concern for others and the sense of responsibility that he displayed on October 7.

Even in the midst of her grief, Kaminka’s thoughts were focused on her Palestinian neighbours in Wadi Fukin. The army demolished three buildings there, one a house about to be inhabited, a second in early stages of construction and a third, a workshop that was in use.

According to the logic of the Israeli occupation, now more than 50 years old, such demolitions are legitimate since the structures were built without permits. But Kaminka noted, and rights groups have stressed repeatedly, such permits are virtually impossible to obtain due to discriminatory Israeli planning practices. “The day of the demolitions was one of the days I cried the most since losing my son,” she said. "It was one of my worst days.”

Kaminka said the demolitions could make Tzur Hadassah a less safe place by increasing desperation and prompting Palestinians to choose a violent path.

A resident of Wadi Fukin, who spoke on condition of anonymity, voiced despair over what he termed the “inhuman” action by the army. He told The Jewish Independent that the structures were built on private property and that their owners - Hazem Manasra, Younes Manasra and Yousef Hroub - had no possibility of building legally on their own land because of Israeli strictures. “I was there right after the demolitions. People were crying for their house,” he said.

Since moving to Tzur Hadassah in 2000, Kaminka, who grew up in California, has been prominent among a group of residents who assist Wadi Fukin Palestinians in a variety of ways. The Kaminka house was always open to people from Wadi Fukin and nearby Hussan village. As a child, Yannai was used to finding Palestinians sitting on the couch when he entered the living room, his mother recalled.

Although the two communities are next to each other geographically, in other respects they are worlds apart. While Tzur Hadassah is a mostly middle-class suburb of Jerusalem just inside the Green Line, Wadi Fukin is in the occupied West Bank and its low-income residents live under Israeli military occupation. They scrape by through hard-scrabble farming or working mostly menial jobs in Israel, illegal Israeli West Bank settlements or Tzur Hadassah. Since October 7, in accordance with a sweeping security ban in the West Bank, they have effectively been barred from reaching these workplaces, putting a financial squeeze on their families.

Kaminka's group has helped Wadi Fukin villagers over the years, including facilitating the work of a cooperative so they can sell their vegetables. It also intervened sewage from the illegal Beitar Ilit settlement poured down on the village and when construction work in Tzur Hadassah caused flooding. When settlers destroyed farming equipment or swam in farmers’ irrigation pools, Kaminka and others in the group were there to help. They have also raised money and arranged legal counsel during tough times.

“For a lot of people, those who live in Wadi Fukin are invisible. Israel and the Palestinian Authority don’t pay attention to them. The question for us was how could we make sure our neighbours are not overlooked and that they have someone fighting for them,” she said.

For her, helping neighbours and working to have good relations with them has always been a guiding personal ethos. She said one of the inspirations was the ancient dictum to love thy neighbour as thyself.

But after October 7, many residents of Tzur Hadassah, and of Israel in general, became scared of having Arab neighbours anywhere near them. The feared scenario in Tzur Hadassah, Kaminka said, was that residents could meet the same fate as the Gaza border communities, with Palestinians breaking through the fence and murdering children in their beds.

“People are terrified,” she said, adding that even her daughter had voiced fears about terrorists breaking into their home.

“No one could see the pictures of October 7 and not be worried. I just don’t think the solution is to knock down everyone’s house in Wadi Fukin.

“If you see a threat near you, you do everything to protect your children. But people who actually know Wadi Fukin and the history see things differently.”

The difference came to a head last month when many Tzur Hadassah residents liked a social media post by Tzur Hadassah mayor, Tomer Moskowitz, in which he strongly implied that he was responsible for the army’s swift demolition of the structures.

Kaminka and dozens of other Tzur Hadassah residents signed a petition in protest against their mayor’s role. They also challenged Moskowitz’s actions during a tense meeting in his office.

Moskowitz told The Jewish Independent that after October 7 “there was a great deal of fear and residents asked that we increase security. We added manpower, strengthened the fences and brought more cameras.”

In contrast to his social media post, he said the demolition was not his decision. He had merely passed on to army administrators a complaint he had received from a resident of the Beitar Ilit settlement about illegal buildings belonging to Wadi Fukin residents.

Beitar Ilit, which like Tzur Hadassah overlooks Wadi Fukin, is itself illegal according to international law, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention’s ban on a country moving its nationals into occupied territory.

Moskowitz said he would do the same thing again if he was appraised of further suspected building violations. “As I told Elana Kaminka, I will certainly report any further complaint to the army.

“Can the construction of houses outside the line of Wadi Fukin in the direction of Tzur Hadassah be a danger to Tzur Hadassah? Apparently the answer is yes. That’s why the army destroyed them and it also did so because they were illegal,” he said.

Demolishing the houses violated all the coexistence work, trust and relationships Kaminka and others had forged over more than two decades. “These demolitions destroyed me. I have three other children and it’s like watching their future also being demolished. This mindset will only lead to devastation,” she said.

“I don’t want my other kids to end up like Yannai and the only way to change that is to build a just coexistence of seeing one another, understanding one another and understanding one another’s pain. These demolitions are an example of exactly the opposite.”

While mourning Yannai, Kaminka reached out to residents in Wadi Fukin and Husan. “I wrote to them. I wanted them to know they still have friends in Israel and that I know they are also suffering from the results of this attack.

“The atrocities of October 7 were carried out by a certain group of people, not all Palestinians. There can be no forgiveness for the Hamas terrorists who murdered children in their beds.  But people in Wadi Fukin didn’t do that. People in Husan didn’t do that. People I know don’t support that. It wasn’t done with their acquiescence. I wanted them to know that I see them as people.”

The demolitions are symptomatic of a larger problem plaguing Israelis and Palestinians alike, Kaminka said. “The majority of people on either side are in such a state of pain and vulnerability that they can’t see the pain on the other side. Everyone wants there to be a good guy and a bad guy and to say we’re the good guys and they are the bad guys. But for me, it’s possible to think yes, the occupation is horrible. It’s horrible that so many children have been killed in Gaza. It’s horrible Hamas massacred children in their beds and took children hostage. Each is horrible and the only way to stop these horrible things from happening is to start listening to each other. It’s hard work.”

Kaminka said she learned from Yannai an approach that can help coexistence efforts. “If you say I’ll acknowledge your pain but you acknowledge mine first, it won’t work. The way you get people to acknowledge your pain is to start by acknowledging theirs. That’s what Yannai did.

“He listened to people and gave them a sense he understood their pain and where they were coming from. If you do it authentically and deeply it creates the conditions in someone’s heart where they are more able to recognise your pain.”

She added, “If I were to speak to a Palestinian, I wouldn’t say, ‘My son was killed and look at all these horrible things that happened on October 7’. I would say, ‘So many Palestinian children have been killed and that’s really horrible and I’m really upset about that and I know that must be hurtful to you’.

“That’s first. That has more of a likelihood of their saying in response, ‘I heard some pretty horrible things happened on your side.’” 

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