Disappearing people, disappearing morals – how two years has changed Gaza and Israel | Orly Noy

There can be no healing until the world stares into and acknowledges the void torn open by this conflict

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bout two weeks after 7 October, I received a WhatsApp message from an acquaintance in Gaza. He asked me to check on his mother, who at that time was hospitalised in East Jerusalem. He had been unable to contact her for several days. When I asked him for her details, he stopped replying.

A month ago, out of the blue, I got a message from him: “Hello Orly,” in Arabic. Excited, I asked how he was, where he was, and how his family were doing. The reply I received was: “Mahmoud was killed at the beginning of the war, this is his sister.” I wrote words of condolence and asked about her condition. I heard nothing more.

It is extremely hard to put into words the unprecedented hell these past two years have brought, but perhaps the single word that best captures their indescribable essence is this: disappearance.