Some 200,000 people have joined a virtual joint Palestinian-Israeli Memorial Day ceremony, the Parents Circle Families Forum announced on Tuesday.
The Forum, which joins a group of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families who work together for reconciliation and peace, said this great number of participants boosts peace hopes and stresses the importance of multiplying efforts to achieve peace.
It was founded in 1995 as an Israeli association, then it became a joint body with the Palestinians. Today, it includes 600 bereaved families of the two peoples.
Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, who lead this activity, say that “despite the many disadvantages of the coronavirus outbreak, yet it has made us resort to the virtual world.”
They both stressed that the number of participants and interaction with the virtual event was unexpected.
“Palestinians and Israelis joint fight against the coronavirus outbreak seems to have made them realize how precious life is and how much we must preserve it in peace,” they noted.
The event was held at the initiative of the Israeli-Palestinian organization Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle forum and without an in-person audience for the first time since its inception in 2006 due to the coronavirus. It was live-streamed from studios in Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
UN Special Middle East envoy Nikolay Mladenov also participated in the ceremony this year.
He began by thanking all participants and organizers of the event, describing them as an inspiration for all.
Both Palestinians and Israelis desperately need leaders who would do the same as you, Mladenov noted.
“There are radicals on all sides, there are people who want to burn all bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, and who want to see the divide harden. What you are doing is going against that. What you are doing is really the work of humanity. And that is to turn grief into hope, and to turn hope into a future for all of us.”
