Current students and alumni affected by violence

As 2012 Park graduate Jesse Abelson played a pickup soccer game during his gap year program in Jerusalem, Israel Nov. 16, his game was abruptly interrupted.

“A red alert siren went off, meaning that there were missiles coming toward Jerusalem. It paralyzed us,” Abelson said. “We ended up running into the staircase of an apartment (to take cover) until we heard a faint boom.”

The rocket was part of the violent conflict that ensued between Israel and the Hamas Militant Organization in the Gaza Strip.

This short escalation of conflict lasted for eight days beginning Nov. 14 and ending with a ceasefire Nov. 21. During this time, Israel launched around 1,500 air strikes at Gaza. Hamas, currently in power in Gaza, fired a similar number of air strikes at Israel. The conflict ended in four Israeli deaths and more than 160 Palestinian deaths.

Tasneem Morshed-Azem,  a Palestinian foreign exchange student who attended Park during the 2010-2011 school year, currently lives in Israel, and said she too was affected by the violence, but in a different manner.

“I have tons of friends living in Gaza, and checking on them daily was scary as I was not sure if they would answer or not,” Morshed-Azem said. “They always tell me about the horror and fear they live in (because) of the possibility of a bomb falling in the middle of their house.”

Similarly, Abelson said the atmosphere in Israel has been altered after the air strikes.

“Personally, I know I am constantly aware of my surroundings,” he said. “Every siren I hear, I think it could be the missile siren.”

As violence progressed, some students expressed their opinions. Senior Evan Hill said he thinks both nations are partially to blame.

“I think they both have their faults, but I feel Israel is the instigator because they were given the land and were expected to deal with the territorial situation,” Hill said. “But I don’t think responses by either side are good.”

Some students have also turned to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to express their opinions. Freshman Justin Less said he posted a status on Facebook to show his support for Israel in the conflict.

“A lot of people have been posting ‘Don’t pay attention to the media because they are so biased against Israel,’” Less said. “A lot of my friends posted a status about the media bias, I posted it too. At the end it said copy this and put it as your status to support Israel.”

CEO of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation Steve Silberfarb said he thinks an end to this ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine will end in one of two ways.

“The only way out of this is either total war, meaning one side is totally wiped out, or peace,” he said. “I hope Israelis and Palestinians of good faith that believe in rights find a way to secure peace, and not let those that are radical like Hamas veto the peace.”