The Israeli-Palestine conflict has been prevalent ever since the late 19th century, but has since escalated, substantially in October of this year. 

Starting in the 19th century, Jewish people were placed in Palestine despite their wishes, creating initial conflicts between the two groups. Following the Holocaust, tensions between newly created Israel and Palestine continued to escalate. Palestinians have wanted to establish an independent country for themselves, and are required to interact with Israel in order to accomplish their goal.Although many treaties were proposed, the relationship between these countries has always resulted in violence, leading to frequent attacks and bombing in today’s news. 

Rithwick Lakshmanan, a junior who is very involved in this topic, believes that Palestine brought their own misfortune to themselves: “Hamas originally initiated the 2023 fight by attacking Israel, and now Israel is fighting back,” Lakshmanan stated. 

Recently, a senior at the Islamic University of Gaza, Tala Herzallah, spoke on the horrors associated with this conflict. As a result of the ongoing battle, Herzallah’s university has been destroyed, along with other buildings in Gaza. 

Herzallah is a student and an English teacher at a small language center in Gaza. During the Gaza attacks, she watched as nearly 5,000 of her community members ended up dead with thousands more injured.

In order to bring the horrors of living in a war-filled life to light, Herzallah has been keeping a video diary about her life during this event. Additionally, Herzallah attends virtual interviews to display how civilians are put in danger due to this international conflict. 

Starting her video story on Oct. 10, Herzallah has showcased how her life has changed for the worse and the horrific events that happen on a daily basis. Within her diary entries, she touches on the overall condition of Gaza, supply count and medical information. 

“I think that these diaries could really help civilian lives in the future since it gives outsiders an insight into how people live during these horrible things. I also think this could lead to the founding of new nonprofits specifically for these types of situations,” Lakshmanan said. 

“We were literally shaking due to fear. We didn’t know if we would wake up alive or not,” Herzallah stated during an interview about the Gaza bombings. During a later interview, Herzallah commented about the state of their medical supplies. “Everything is getting very hard: water, food, health, medicines, health services, medicines … We’re not allowed to go in or out of Gaza.”

Sophomore Vrayas Pila recently watched these entries, which expanded his knowledge about the whole concept. “I always knew that wars were bad in general due to the high mortality rate during such events, but the diary entries really showed how the common man suffers from these battles,” Pila explained. 

With these videos and interviews, people around the world are able to view how life is during an international conflict and how one’s life is filled with fear and chaos. Given that Gaza has limited access to medical supplies and essentials like food, Herzallah’s videos may inspire others to donate towards the cause of helping out civilians stuck on battlefields.