By Zaihan Mohd Yusof in Jerusalem, Israel

4 Sep 1997

SMADAR Elhanan, 14, is walking down Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, Israel.

It is her first day back at school and Smadar is shopping for new textbooks.

At 3pm, two Palestinian suicide bombers blow themselves up nearby.

Five innocent lives are lost, including Smadar's.

16 Jan 2007

Abir Aramin, 10, has just finished school.

The Palestinian girl from the West Bank town of Anata is on her way home with her sister and friends.

Israeli border police patrolling the area allegedly open fire. She is hit at the back of her head by a rubber-coated bullet.

She dies three days later in hospital.

Different faces of tragedy, across space and time.

Yet, similar tales of sorrow and frustration experienced by parents living on the opposite ends of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While the natural reaction to such needless loss is often anger and eventually revenge, one Israeli resists these instincts. He is not alone.

Many like Mr Rami Elhanan have chosen to fight another way - the peaceful way, even when painful memories of losing his daughter Smadar still linger.

Parents Circle

The father, better known as Rami, and his Palestinian counterparts are members of 500-strong Parents Circle.

The price for admission into the organisation is dear. You must have a family member or friend killed in the conflict. Each year, its membership rises.

Said Rami, 59, a graphic designer: 'My family and I used to live in a bubble. Then one day, that bubble burst when Smadar was killed. After that, I felt like killing everybody.'

That was before he had met the founder of Parents Circle shortly after Smadar's death. Rami, a veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the Lebanon War in the '80s, was invited to a special gathering.

He would soon meet 'the enemy' who had similarly lost family members in the conflict.

Rami, then 47, was curious, yet at the same time, cynical. He said: 'I thought how could anybody talk about peace with the enemy?'

But the feeling of hatred quickly faded as he saw the faces of the Palestinian delegates alighting from a bus.

Rami vividly remembered a Palestinian woman holding a photograph of her six-year-old daughter to her chest.

It overwhelmed him and became the turning point.

He said: 'I ended up crying and hugging the Palestinians. It was the first time I met Palestinians and saw them as human beings who carry the same burden as I do.

'There is hope for peace because nowhere is it written that we (Palestinians and Israelis) are doomed to become enemies. Killing each other will not bring our loved ones back.'

Rami now has an extended Palestinian family - brothers and sisters, active members of Parents Circle, who give lectures in Hebrew and Arabic at schools, universities and public forums. The speakers share their suffering with Palestinians and Israelis trying to make sense of the decades-long conflict.

One Palestinian speaker who hopes to stop the cycle of revenge is Mr Bassam Aramin, father of the slain Abir.

Said Mr Bassam, 41, who had spent seven years in an Israeli jail for lobbing a grenade at an Israeli patrol: 'I sympathised with Rami for his daughter's death. I was unaware that soon it would be my turn to mourn.'

Continue talking

The recent war in Gaza has made reaching out to the public more urgent, Mr Bassam said.

He added: 'We used to kill each other and decided that military action is not the solution.

'The answer is to continue talking. We both face the same enemy, that is the occupation.'

Yet, not all can accept what the group is trying to do.

Rami has been labelled a traitor. One person at a forum even said that 'it's a pity you were not blown up with your daughter'.

Rami said: 'Some of the teachers at schools we had lectured told their students not to listen to us as it will weaken or corrupt them.

'At the end of my talk when I see a nod from one student, I feel that I have succeeded. I would have saved a drop of blood.'

While the fighting rages on both sides today, an important bridge has been built. A link has been made by a minority of Israelis and Palestinians in groups like Parents Circle.

At his office on Bilu Street, a 20-minute drive from Jerusalem, Rami keeps a special picture frame on his desk. In it are portraits of Smadar and Abir.

Likewise in Mr Bassam's West Bank home, the Palestinian keeps photos of the Elhanan family.

Both families write and visit each other often.

Said Rami: 'It's my moral obligation to tell people my story. Not doing so would be a crime.'

This article was first published in The New Paper.