Over the past 12 months, co-ops across the Middle East have been shaken by the fifth war of the Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, and the most significant military engagement in the region since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
The current conflict is the deadliest war for Palestinians in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with over 40,000 Palestinians killed.
As the war in Gaza goes on, with the conflict expanding into Lebanon, on 7 October, kibbutzim members in Israel participated in memorial ceremonies held across the country for those murdered in Hamas’s attack a year earlier, the deadliest of its kind on Israeli soil.
Over 1,200 people were killed in the attack, with 7,500 wounded and 254 taken hostage. Some of these hostages were killed in Israeli attacks targeting Hamas members.
The Kibbutz Movement HQ played a key role in supporting members in the aftermath of the attack, establishing an emergency room, collecting information and coordinating immediate support for the sieged communities.
“A year ago we were stunned by the horrific attacks on the Western Negev and the North. Since then, we’ve been working tirelessly to rebuild our communities, providing their members with social, educational and physical support,” said the Kibbutz Movement in a statement.
“These are incredibly challenging times for Israel, especially within the Kibbutz movement,” says Mully Dor, chair of the board Ajeed-Nisped, an Arab-Jewish organisation for social change that was established in the Negev in 2000. He said that at the time of replying to Co-op News, he was hearing sirens outside identifying missiles coming from Yemen and those coming every day from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Among those killed in Hamas’s attack was former Ajeed-Nisped CEO Vivian Silver, 75, from Kibbutz Beeri, whom Dor describes as “a great peace activist and leader of the movement Women for Peace in Israel”.
“At Ajeed-Nisped, like many organisations here, we are navigating through these uncertain and painful times, focusing on keeping our members safe and supporting our communities as much as possible,” he says. “The ongoing conflict has undoubtedly burdened us; 319 co-op members were killed, and out of 101 hostages who are in Gaza, 50 are co-op members, yet the resilience of co-operative values continues to shine through.”
Related: UK tech co-op seeks support to continue fuelling fair opportunities for coders in Gaza
Over the past 24 years, Ajeed-Nisped has been actively campaigning for peace and a co-operative approach to peace-building.
“Despite the difficulties, we remain hopeful that, in the long term, a co-operative approach to peace, coexistence, and mutual understanding will prevail,” adds Dor. “Our work is a testament to the belief that building bridges between communities is the way forward, even when the situation appears bleak. Around 117,000 citizens were evacuated from their homes and villages during the war. Many of them were members of Kibbutz in the south and the north. We are supporting those evacuated to hotels and temporary sites and have started to help them recover.”
He thinks co-ops in other countries can help by calling for peace. “Solidarity is the most valuable thing right now. This can come in the form of raising awareness about the human impact of the conflict, advocating for peace, and sharing experiences of how co-operatives have played a role in fostering dialogue and rebuilding trust in conflict zones. Any effort amplifying our call for a peaceful resolution and highlighting co-ops’ role as agents of change would be significant.”
The conflict has resulted in 1.9 million people being forced from their homes in Gaza, up to 70,000 fleeing northern Israel and 1,000,000 seeking refuge from vulnerable areas of Lebanon (with 250,000 crossing into Syria).
In Gaza, co-ops that were once the backbone of the economy are faced with insurmountable human and material losses. The movement estimates the total financial damage to be half a billion dollars.
Edin Abu Taha, chair of the Union of Housing Cooperatives (UHC) in Palestine, told Co-op News the situation a year after the war is “catastrophic”.
Pre-war co-ops were active in the agricultural, housing and financial sectors, as well as handicrafts and service provision. The co-operative housing sector, which included 120 co-ops, was among the most affected. The largest co-op was the Return Association, which had 297 housing units, spread over nine residential towers, all of which were 85% damaged.
Many others from other co-ops were damaged and rendered inhabitable. There are more than 100,000 co-op members in Gaza who now live in tents or shelters.
The agricultural sector was also severely impacted by the war. Set up in 1975, the agricultural co-operative union helped to produce food for Gaza’s population and even exported produce to other countries. The war led to heavy losses to farmers who could no longer look after the crops. The union’s building housing and processing farmers’ produce was destroyed. The farmers also lack seedlings and are trying to replenish these using a small nursery.
Despite all these challenges, Gazan co-op members remain hopeful and people are determined to rebuild what was destroyed. The mission of Gazan co-ops has also shifted from meeting their members’ needs to ensuring they deliver for the wider society.
“We need to return to our projects and resume our lives,” said one co-op member, adding that they hope to work with co-operative associations worldwide to rebuild the movement.
“We hold on to life with hope despite death. We hope that tomorrow is better. Hope to rebuild the country. Even if we die, there will be a generation that will build it again,” they added.
As co-ops in both Israel and Gaza continue to call for peace, the conflict keeps claiming lives.
Many will wonder whether it is possible to build long-lasting peace when there is so much grief, trauma and resentment within both Israeli and Palestinian communities. As research on Rwanda’s experience has shown, co-ops can play a positive role in the restoration of relationships between conflicting parties “by enabling them to overcome previous negative-dehumanising relationships (division, miscommunication, fear, suspicion, anger and hatred), while fostering positive-(re)humanising ones.”
But co-ops can only achieve so much. As the UN secretary-general told the UN Security Council in March, a lasting end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only come through a two-state solution. Until such an agreement is reached, conflict will be an everyday reality for co-op members in Israel and Palestine.
