Palestine

When my neighbor told me an Iranian missile landed on our street in Bat Yam I was in disbelief. Only after checking the news and seeing our community in rubble did I start to comprehend the reality. When she was able to check on our apartments her words shook me even further: "I don't want you to see these photos, but let's just say we can't live there anymore."

My home was something I took immense pride in. A soft place to land in a world constantly in motion. I carefully chose my furniture, my rugs, even the way light came through the windows. That home, like so many others in Israel, is now gone. I'm exceptionally lucky that my brave neighbor risked her life to go back inside and save some of my documents — baby photos, IDs, the little things that tether you to your own existence. Many others weren't as fortunate. The army and government refused to help us rescue these last remnants of life from before the Iran-Israel war.

How is it that we, civilians, are constantly forced to put our own lives on the line to help one another and protect our communities? And yet simultaneously, our voices are ignored in political corridors. We, the "home front" are the backbone of society, and yet left invisible, treated as expendable, our suffering minimized perpetually.

Many friends are posting photos of what's left: shattered windows, crumbled storefronts, smoke-stained staircases. I see dreams flattened into dust — on both sides of the border. From people in Israel to those in Gaza and now Iran, the pain is everywhere, spiraling inward and outward. Homes are destroyed by bombs, by fear, by failure of leadership. And we're left to mourn, to scream into the void while the people in power treat war like a campaign strategy. They say the "home front" is part of the war. Well if that's true, then I ask: why has it been abandoned?

The truth is that our leaders are more interested in political theatrics than in genuine, compassionate leadership. I refuse to accept a future where accountability is a luxury. We deserve leadership that sees beyond power plays and recognizes that real security lies in social trust and community resilience.

It should be obvious that when a government builds its strength on the ruins of our homes, on the shattered dreams of our people, then it has truly lost — regardless of any military aims achieved or any nuclear facilities destroyed. But that concept doesn't seem to land in this Holy Land.

Even in the wake of October 7, it wasn't the government that stepped up. It was us — civilians. It was young people delivering aid across towns. It was volunteers running logistical coordination that the state should have handled. I was one of them, working tirelessly to ensure that those in immediate danger weren't alone. This shouldn't have been our job. But we did it anyway, because we care about each other. Because that's what community means.

There’s no world in which Israel’s war machine is sustainable: not morally, not economically, not environmentally. What we need is a national reckoning. We need accountability. And we need a seat at the table — not as victims, not as statistics, but as citizens with voices, ideas and the right to live a decent life without being collateral damage in someone else’s power game.

The compensation packages offered to those displaced by yet another volley of missiles are honestly insulting. They don't account for the actual cost of rebuilding a life. They certainly don't account for trauma, loss of income or the unquantifiable ache of seeing everything you've built wiped away overnight. What do you do when your house, your safe space, becomes a hole?

I don't want to suffer anymore because our world is run by man-children like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I don't want anyone — Israeli, Palestinian, Iranian — to bury their children because our leaders can't let go of their egos. This is my last straw. And I know I'm not alone.

I've spent the last few years working at the intersection of climate justice and peacebuilding. I believe in healing the earth alongside its people. Even before this war began, I was advocating for intersectional environmentalism across borders, for regional cooperation grounded in trust and survival. But now, from abroad — displaced by closed airspace and closed resources — I find myself writing not as an activist, but as someone who has just lost her home to a war I never asked for. A war that feels less like security and more like a personal price tag slapped on each one of us who still dares to hope for peace.

I wish this were exceptional. But in Israel, this is the pattern. Netanyahu manufactures conflict like clockwork — because chaos keeps him in office and the courtrooms at bay.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to live. My heart aches for the countless families forced to watch their lives unravel. Instead I envision a future where governments invest in rebuilding not just physical structures, but also trust and solidarity, the true infrastructure of peace. If we are to build a society that values justice, dignity and sustainability, we must begin by recognizing that every citizen has a stake in our collective future.

We must demand a voice at the decision-making table. To insist that our lived experiences, our tragic losses and our hard-won moments of communal solidarity inform the policies that shape our lives. I refuse to be cast aside as an afterthought.

If this horrific tragedy has taught me anything it's that we must reclaim our home — and not just its bricks and mortar, but its soul.