Seven months ago, before Hamas stormed into Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Eleanora Ginsborg and Samar Omer had never met.
But in the attack’s violent aftermath, Ginsborg and Omer, students at the University of California, San Diego, forged a new friendship – and a new sense of activism-fueled purpose. A third student who already knew Omer “like a sister”, and requested to go by the pseudonym Hala Abdallah out of safety concerns, completed the group.
As Israel waged war in Gaza, leading to a death toll of more than 34,000 people, mass destruction and the threat of famine, the three women’s separate worlds came crashing together. Suddenly, they were sharing many long nights at student meetings on campus, talking about their own backgrounds, the war and their collective desire for peace.
