Maoz Inon

Hi, good morning.

It's great to be with you.

Yes, you are right.

My parents, my beloved parents, Bila and Jacobi, were among the first victims of the Hamas attack of October the 7th.

They lived only 200 meters from the border with Gaza, and we lost contact with them early morning, Saturday morning.

And later in the afternoon, we learned that their house was burned to ashes with them inside.

And we've decided, me, my three sisters, and my young brother, to start the Shiva immediately.

It's the seventh day of mourning within the Jewish tradition.

And on the second day, my brother, Magen, told us that we must make a family decision and then to share it with everyone that is willing to listen.

And he wanted this decision to be that we are rejecting revenge.

that we don't want to avenge the deaths of our parents, and he explained that by avenging their death, we're not going to bring them back to life, and we'll only escalate the cycle of violence and bloodshed.

We, Palestinian Israelis, have been trapped within for a century, and he argued that to cherish my parents' legacy and memory, we must create a new path, a new vision for peace and reconciliation.

No, it took us maybe five minutes, if I want to exaggerate.

It's exactly the way our parents raised us and prepared us for this tragic moment, always to reject revenge, always to reject violence, and that we have the agency to change the future, and we have the agency to make the future a better future, first for us, but for all the 14 million people living between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

So anger and also seeking revenge and wanting to avenge what happened to us, it's part of the human feelings.

So I definitely acknowledge and recognize those feelings.

And then the question is, what are we doing with this anger?

And like Aziz taught me and says many times, anger is like a nuclear power.

We can use it to destroy civilization, and we can use it to create light, light that will take us into a better future.

So in the future is peace.