The war between Israel and Iran has taken hold — missiles, casualties, airstrikes. But the violence isn’t new for us. For people living across Israel, Palestine, and Iran, fear has been a fact of daily life for years. What this moment shows — once again — is that war doesn’t impact everyone the same way.

Some of us spend the night in shelters in our homes, municipal facilities or deep below ground in the subway stations. Others don’t even have those.
Some of us lose sleep and are sick with worry. Others lose homes, access to water, land, or freedom of movement.
Some live with the fear of rockets impacting their homes where their children sleep. Others with checkpoints, drones, detentions, and demolitions.

Below are two short stories — from the West Bank and Tel Aviv — about what this moment looks and feels like for people on both sides of the Green Line.

"When something happens in Gaza — or now with Iran — we brace ourselves. Here in the West Bank, we know it means more raids, more road closures, more settler attacks. Last week, settlers came down from the outpost near us and torched part of my cousin’s olive grove. The fire spread fast. We called the fire department, but they couldn’t get through — the army had already closed the road.

The next day, soldiers showed up, not to investigate the arson, but to declare the land a closed military zone. They told us we couldn’t return to the area ‘for our own safety,’ while the settlers walked around freely, armed.

My husband works in construction inside Israel, but his permit was revoked after October 7th — no reason given. We depend on that income. My teenage son missed school again this week. The checkpoint near us has been closed off and on for days, and when it opens, the soldiers take hours to let people through.

When there are sirens in Tel Aviv, it feels like the whole world checks in. Here, when settlers shoot at our homes or soldiers raid at night, it barely makes the news. There are no shelters for us. There are no headlines.

We keep planting trees, we keep trying to live our lives — but the message we get is clear: they want us to give up and leave. We won’t. But it gets harder every day."

"When the sirens went off during the first Iranian attack, we grabbed the kids and ran to the stairwell. We were down there for almost an hour. My youngest was shaking and asked if a missile was going to hit our building. I didn’t have an answer — because I didn’t know.

It’s terrifying to realize how quickly everything can fall apart. Since then, I’ve barely slept. Nights are the worst — we’re always half-dressed, half-ready to run.

But what stays with me constantly is this: for us, this fear is immense, but we know it is temporary. For many others — Palestinians in Gaza, families in the West Bank — this is different. They don’t have sirens or shelters. They live in this uncertainty all the time, and no one comes to check if they’re okay.

That doesn’t make my fear any less real, or my instinct to protect my family any less urgent. But it forces me to ask: how can we live in a place where some lives are protected and others are not? Where safety depends on your identity, your city, your side of the wall?

This war didn’t just shake my sense of security. It made it clear how unequal that security is. And I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that’s normal."

These two stories are just snapshots. But they show us something vital: war and occupation are lived differently depending on where you are and who you are. But the pain is real on all sides. And so is the courage to keep going.

Nonviolent co-resistance is about building a shared future, even when our present looks nothing alike.

Last night, the United States launched an attack on an Iranian nuclear site. This is yet another escalation in a conflict that continues to spiral. But we know — because we live it — that more violence will only lead to more suffering.

What’s needed now is not more firepower — it’s leadership, courage, and a commitment to political solutions. We urge you to demand that your representatives push for negotiations, not escalation. A different future is still possible and we know it can be achieved.

Thank you for standing with those who continue to choose life, dignity, and nonviolence — even in the hardest times.