Meet Laila Al Shekh. Laila and her family were living outside of Bethlehem when the area was attacked by the Israeli military. She remembers fighters hiding out inside the Church of the Nativity (the church where it is believed that Mary gave birth to Jesus). During the ongoing fighting, her 6-month old son breathed in tear gas causing respiratory distress. Bethlehem is located in the West Bank, which required that she pass through several checkpoints in order to get her son to a hospital that had the services to attend to her son. She recalled being turned away at multiple checkpoints and then being asked to wait for over 4 hrs as her son struggled for air in her arms. “I felt so hopeless, like who am I if I can’t even save my son?” When she finally arrived at a hospital, she was told she had to leave her son in the ICU as fighters were entering the building. The hospital staff told her that if her son lived for 48hrs, he would be disabled.

The next day she heard the words that no mother should ever hear. ‘Your son has died’. “These words were like a bullet to my heart.” “I kept trying to convince myself that this was a dream. I then had a dream of a white dove descending on my shoulder telling me not to cry.”

“I was allowed in the hospital to say goodbye. I was the last person to see him. Kissing his cold cheek was like kissing frozen rock. From that moment on our lives were forever changed.”

She paused, then said, “but…. revenge will never bring anyone back. I didn’t want my other kids to be a part of the cycle of violence but at the same time I didn’t want to have any relationships with Israelis.”

At some point, over 15 years later, she found herself involved in the ‘Parent’s Circle’, a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization comprised of families who have all lost family members due to the ongoing conflict. During her work with this project she heard Israeli stories for the first time. This was the first time that she was able to actually see Israelis as humans and realized that they too shed the same tears. She remembers taking Israelis to Palestinian villages that existed before 1948. They were shocked as they came to realize that Palestinians had lived there before the occupation.

Both sides had to talk about the conflict and how it had affected their lives. After 16yrs, her husband finally spoke about the death of their son. An Israeli woman sat in front of her, cried and apologized.

“This was the first time that someone did that; from that moment on I started educating and spreading messages of reconcilliation” and she was reminded of her dream- “God wanted me to be a white dove- an agent of peace; a peace activist! These encounters with Israelis changed the way I thought about forgiveness. You must bed the hatred and anger away. If we learn about others, we can achieve peace.”

To learn more about this incredible org, please check out About PCFF - Parents Circle Families Forum (theparentscircle.org)