In a bustling clinic in Rawalpindi, my aunt clutches her immigration papers. Her eyes dart between the English forms and the harried receptionist. She’s from Gaza, displaced after the 2023 escalations, and English is her newest hurdle. “Gulalai, beta, what does ‘deportation’ mean here?” she whispers. At 16, I’m no longer just a niece. I’m the bridge. No textbook prepared me for this, but necessity did. In that moment, “deportation” is not a vocabulary word. It is a shield.

This is not unique to my family. Across the Middle East and its diasporas, from West Bank checkpoints to Lebanese refugee camps, English learners become unplanned interpreters when systems demand it. I’ve read that many Syrian refugee kids in Jordan end up translating for their parents at hospitals. They explain medical terms like “hypertension” even when they’re scared or tired (UNHCR, “Jordan Refugee Response Plan,” 2022). In Palestine, where millions of refugees deal with complicated Israeli paperwork or international aid, children in East Jerusalem schools often interpret at parent-teacher meetings (PCBS, “Education and Language Barriers in Occupied Territories,” 2021). What textbooks call “phrasal verbs,” life turns into survival tools: “fill out this form,” “sign here,” “follow up next week.”

Responsibility teaches what classrooms cannot: stakes. I remember stumbling over “eligibility criteria” because if I got it wrong, my aunt’s residency could be delayed for months. Suddenly, all those passive voice exercises from English class made sense. “The application will be reviewed” was not just grammar. It was a promise I had to get exactly right. Classrooms pretend to create stakes with role-plays. Life makes mistakes dangerous. I heard about a Lebanese girl who translated “evacuation orders” for her mother at a Beirut hospital while rockets were falling nearby during the 2024 tensions (HRW, “Lebanon: Civilian Harm in Cross-Border Strikes,” 2024). She was not thinking about perfect English. She just wanted her mother to be safe.

Necessity turbocharges motivation, too. When you are “needed,” learning stops feeling like homework. It becomes part of who you are. Palestinian teenagers helping at food banks or legal aid offices gain confidence that helps them everywhere. One study found young interpreters in the West Bank spoke English better than students in regular classes (British Council, “English for Integration: Palestine Youth Report,” 2023). I felt this when I explained my aunt’s story to a caseworker. My shaky sentences, “She fled because of the bombings,” suddenly sounded clear and strong.

But classrooms lag. They drill grammar without grit. What if English classes worked like real life? Imagine IGCSE students helping Afghan or Syrian families at local clinics. There was a program in Amman that improved students’ English by 25% in

just six months (Mercy Corps, “Language as Integration Tool,” 2023). Or schools could use apps that feel urgent, with timers and realistic scenarios. Suddenly English becomes a tool you need, not a test you study for.

Yet this unplanned role extracts a toll. Kids carry adult responsibilities and get tired or resentful. Research shows language brokering can lead to burnout (Chao, “The Price of Being a Bridge,” 2019). After helping my aunt at the clinic, I felt proud but exhausted. Schools should help these young interpreters, not just use their skills.

In the end, the unplanned interpreter reveals English’s raw power: a bridge built in crisis, spanning Palestine’s grief to Rawalpindi’s clinics. Necessity does not just teach words. It forges voices that endure. Classrooms, take note. Create the need, and fluency follows.

References:

● British Council. (2023). English for Integration: Palestine Youth Report. ● Chao, R. (2019). “The Price of Being a Bridge.” Journal of Child Psychology. ● HRW. (2024). “Lebanon: Civilian Harm in Cross-Border Strikes.” ● Mercy Corps. (2023). “Language as Integration Tool.” Jordan Pilot. ● PCBS. (2021). “Education and Language Barriers in Occupied Territories.” ● UNHCR. (2022). “Jordan Refugee Response Plan.”

The Unplanned Interpreter: When Family Need Forges Fluency was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The discourse of war includes such key terms as strategy, territorial expansion, deterrence, retaliation, and military capacity. There are maps drawn and redrawn in the process of negotiations; positions expressed in statements of official representatives; and statistics compiled by analysts. Yet, the essence of conflicts is not confined to those terms; it rather consists of experiences of people, in particular women’s experiences.

War penetrates inside the family and takes the lives of sons of various ages who have become soldiers. Those mothers who bury their sons are united not in politics and opinions but in sorrow. On both sides of the conflict, they stand before their graves under different flags and cry for someone whom they have just lost. On both sides of the conflict, the dead was once somebody’s child.

When War Comes Home

No matter whether people live in the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon, or Gaza, there always seems to be war around them, and it affects their homes as well. Warning signals are triggered to inform the population about the coming rockets. Mothers quickly pick up their children and take them to shelters. No matter whether they managed to protect their children, they are afraid. Sometimes the threat comes unexpectedly: rockets are launched and explode with frightening force, killing innocent civilians. Sometimes war arrives directly into the house knocking down the door.

According to United Nations reports, thousands of civilians have been victims of multiple escalations. In Gaza, Israel airstrikes caused numerous casualties and destroyed houses, leaving families homeless. In southern Lebanon, people live on high alert trying to recognize dangerous signs of impending attacks and distinguish them from usual sounds of city life.

Even if they do not face such an urgent need to hide, mothers’ anxiety prevents them from being relaxed. Their muscles and breathing remind them of the existence of war and dangers connected with it.

A Mother’s Grief in Palestine

Imagine a Palestinian mother mourning her dead son. He could be arrested or killed while taking part in clashes with military forces during one of the latest escalations. Now she feels guilt as she remembers all the times when she warned her son to behave. He was just too brave.

Her experience of grief is complicated as she feels anger and indignation regarding her loss. This mother sees the structures of oppression that exist and the consequences they have led to. In addition, she thinks about how her child has grown up in conditions of constant fear of losing life.

However, there is probably an Israeli mother experiencing grief over the death of her son as well. Her loss is different, but nevertheless, it is a tragic event for her.

Now imagine the situation when both mothers meet and start talking. What do you think they will say?

This Palestinian mother will probably tell that she did not wish the other woman any evil. In fact, she understands that her child’s fate was not determined by a mother’s wish. Nevertheless, she wishes to express her regret for the fact that the other woman has become an object of grief and sorrow.

The Complications of Loss in Israel

Think now about an Israeli mother whose teenage son served in the army and participated in the operation which was undertaken to stop rocket attacks. Now this mother grieves his loss.

Her pain is not abstract. Her pain is real as it concerns her personal losses that are experienced vividly. Every day, she faces with reality that her beloved child is no longer there and that he will not celebrate birthdays anymore.

But what if an airstrike supported by this woman resulted in the death of Lebanese girls? What can she say to the other mother?

Most likely, this mother would apologize for her previous position saying that her intentions were not to cause the death of a little girl.

Survival Mode in the Time of War

The use of words like “collateral damage” reflects the approach to war in a formalized form. It is not the form of communication that mothers use. The loss of life for them means that a certain child, a person with name and features, dies.

There are cases in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon where people have been victims of attacks regarded as defensive by both parties. While debates continue regarding justifications for the use of weapons, mothers have to face the terrible truth of losing a child.

Mothers use their own languages to express their experiences. Official vocabulary cannot convey their feelings fully.

When Mothers Speak of Losing Children

Some organizations facilitate meeting of bereaved parents who talk to one another telling about children they have lost in the course of war and its escalation. These encounters cannot change the past but sometimes lead to new beginnings of mutual understanding.

Some researchers state that prolonged exposure to violence and threats associated with war leads to anxiety and increased risk of developing depression and PTSD. People who have witnessed violence become traumatized, and this feeling is transmitted to their children.

Thus, it is very important that there are opportunities for sharing sorrow with people from other sides of conflict, with those who feel like we do. Otherwise, grief transforms into bitterness.

Can Reconciliation Be Achieved?

Reconciliation means understanding that another person has suffered from losing one’s beloved one as much as you have done it yourself. It requires acknowledging that all the arguments used during discussions do not help when it comes to loss.

Of course, for some mothers, reconciliation may seem impossible. Feelings of anger and indignation act as a shelter from despair. Nevertheless, some bereaved parents refuse to feel bitter and blame others for the loss they have suffered. These women and men call for creating peaceful relationships that will prevent further tragedies.

Such people are perceived as naive. Still, maybe it is the only thing they can afford.

When Grief Unites People

Words of politicians do not reflect actual experiences of mothers on both sides of a conflict.

There is no doubt that the conflict is very serious and deep-rooted, and its resolution requires efforts to be undertaken. Yet, mothers should not fight each other as grief unites people. There is one truth common to all those women regardless of political views and religion: they have lost sons who were their treasures.

The Mother Whose Son Died on Both Sides — When Grief Is the Only Shared Currency was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Beneath the rhythmic swell of the Eastern Mediterranean, where the water shifts from turquoise to bruised purple, lies a frontier that mapmakers never intended to draw. This is the “Gas Field Border,” a silent and pressurized landscape where the Karish and Qana fields have transformed from geological anomalies into the high stakes vaults of a regional cold war.

For Lebanon, the Qana field is a ghost of a chance. In a nation where currency has collapsed and the lights flicker into darkness, the gas beneath the seabed is spoken of like a secular miracle, a lotus flower rising from the silt of economic ruin. But in the Levant, hope is rarely unburdened by steel. Across the maritime divide, Israel views the Karish field not merely as a resource, but as a strategic rampart, an anchor of energy independence and a gateway to European markets.

The Architecture of Tension

In this theater, an offshore drilling rig is never just a rig. It is a sovereign outpost, a billion dollar threshold, and a modern fortress at sea. When the Energean Power vessel anchored at Karish, it was not simply extracting gas; it was surfacing the compressed tensions of the 2022 maritime dispute.

The military shadow here is long and deliberate. Hezbollah’s rhetoric has turned the sea into a field of “red lines,” where industrial infrastructure and military provocation blur into one another. The deployment of drones toward the Karish platform in 2022 served as a chilling demonstration. In this region, energy assets are never purely economic. They are symbolic targets suspended in saltwater, submerged tripwires whose destruction would ripple far beyond the horizon.

Diplomacy or Detonation

The 2022 maritime agreement, brokered by the United States, was a study in pragmatic silence. It allowed two technically hostile states to divide offshore wealth without ever fully acknowledging each other’s legitimacy. But the deeper question remains unresolved. Can blue gold stabilize a fractured coastline, or does it merely postpone rupture?

The answer sits in the uneasy balance between competing forces.

Economic necessity pushes Lebanon toward extraction as survival.
Israel’s energy ambitions demand uninterrupted security and stability.
Non state military actors introduce volatility that no treaty fully contains.
Global energy markets, hungry for alternatives, quietly accelerate the pace beneath it all.

Together, these pressures produce a fragile equilibrium, less a resolution than a managed tension.

The Verdict

We are left with a question that refuses to settle. Does shared wealth act as a sedative, or as a stimulant for conflict?

As drill bits bite into the Mediterranean crust, they extract more than methane. They draw up historical grievances buried beneath decades of mistrust. The gas flare on the horizon becomes a dual symbol, both illumination and ignition.

As long as these resources are treated as zero sum prizes, the sea will remain a front line disguised as a horizon. The border may be drawn on paper, but the real boundary is written in the pressure beneath the rigs and in the shadows they cast across a divided coast.

The Submerged Tripwire: Blue Gold and Iron Shadows was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve always felt a distance from the language that was meant to come naturally for me–Arabic. My clunky verbiage exposed me as a foreigner even within familial settings, and once I moved from America to Palestine (a sort of backwards diasporic venture) my poor language skills were further exposed. As a child, I constantly heard my parents speaking Arabic around me, but since they were both also fluent in English, I fell into the comfort of listening to their Arabic, but replying in the colonizer’s language.

Arab identity is strongly rooted in knowledge of language, and my lack of fluency made this connection feel disjointed. The Arabic I heard at home was different from the Arabic I heard at Islamic school on Saturdays, for example, and this sort of code switching made grasping the language more difficult. This linguistic concept is called diglossia, in which two distinct forms of one language are utilized in different settings (Daniels, 2018). At home, I heard the more casual and colloquial dialect, while in Islamic school or overhearing an Al Jazeera broadcast introduced a more formal vocabulary. I somehow could never fully grasp the language in either of these realms, and this factor informed my future struggles with Arabic.

In school, where there were few Arabs in general, let alone any Palestinians, English was the only language spoken, and the one that allowed me to express myself confidently. I told myself that it’s good enough that I understand Arabic, and I could always learn to speak it fluently later. Unfortunately, that “later” is still ongoing, and I am ashamed to admit that the language that I am supposed to fully connect to, both on a religious and cultural level, has still not reached the level of unconscious knowledge. I have to methodically plan out each sentence I say in Arabic as if I am a linguistic architect, hoping that every word is in its place, and I can be understood–although I have had many “lost in translation” incidents. After moving to Palestine at 15, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to strengthen my connection to Arabic, but yet again, in my English speaking high school, I remained in the confines of my embarrassment over my inadequacy, and barely spoke Arabic even amongst my friends.

While on some levels, I did see advancements (especially in terms of reading and writing) English was still solidified as my mother tongue. I longed to be fully bilingual, like so many of my friends that switched between languages as if it was second nature, but consistently let my self-consciousness overtake my willingness to make mistakes in order to become better at speaking. Walking around Ramallah with my friends, I always let them take the lead in speaking to waiters, taxi drivers, or storeowners, fearful of being exposed or given the dreaded title of ajnabiyeh (foreigner). I went on like this for the next few years, making minor improvements in my speech, but nothing revolutionary. I let a few instances of awkwardness or erroneous vocabulary dictate my relationship with Arabic, and my wanting to further my skillset beyond basic conversation faded.

This changed when I began studying journalism in Qatar, a profession that requires mastery of language. I soon learned that it was not enough to report stories of my people through translation, or conduct interviews in stilted Arabic, so I made it my personal mission to reignite my studies and begin seriously trying to achieve fluency. The political expression and social strengths that come with mastering Arabic also serve as personal motivators in this process. As discussed in “Arabic, Self, and Identity: A Study in Conflict and Displacement”, speaking Arabic in the Palestinian context is as much of a political statement as a linguistic decision (Sulieman, 2011). In the context of a brutal occupation that is trying to erase Palestinian life and history, holding on to our language and particular dialects is essential. Of course, Zionism can be combatted in any language, but the value of speaking Arabic in the face of active settler colonialism cannot be overlooked. As someone who cares deeply about advocating for my people through writing, speaking Arabic also holds immense value as a force against the occupation.

These elements, among many others, made me realize that fluency is a journey, and not something that can easily be checked off of an academic to-do list. My relationship to Arabic would continue to falter and flourish past my college years, and as long as I didn’t succumb to the complacency of my current state, there would always be opportunity to grow. Even those who are bilingual still always have more to learn, and my desire to learn Arabic proficiently will always outweigh my petty (and overall insignificant) faux pas. I am not close to fluency yet by any means, but I hope that this endeavor will grant me a deeper relationship to my homeland, and allow Arabic to become my true mother tongue.

References:

• Daniëls, H. (2018, May 7). Diglossia. Latest TOC RSS. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/prag/2018/00000028/00000002/art00002
• Suleiman, Y. (2011). Arabic, self and identity: A study in conflict and displacement. Oxford University Press.

Mother Tongue was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

English is a language that loves shortcuts. It does not always walk in straight lines. It often takes a short word, adds a small particle, and suddenly opens a door to several meanings at once. Few examples show this better than get over. In one place, it means recovering from illness. In another, it means crossing something. It can also mean moving on after pain, finishing something unpleasant or even being too clever to trick.

That is the strange beauty of phrasal verbs. They look simple. They sound casual. They feel almost plain. Yet they carry a surprising amount of meaning. Get over a cold. Get over a wall. Get over a breakup. Get this over with. You cannot get anything over on him. Five uses. One tiny phrase. English does this all the time, and that is why it feels both efficient and messy at the same time.

Efficient, because the language does not always need a long formal verb. Instead of saying tolerate, English can say put up with. Instead of saying encounter by accident, it can say come across or run into. Instead of saying fail to happen, it can say fall through. These are short pieces that people use every day. They are easy to say and easy to hear. They fit fast conversation. They sound alive.

But there is also chaos in this system. The particle often does not mean what it seems to mean. Over can mean above, beyond, or finished, but “get over” can also mean recover or accept. Out can mean outside, but “break out”, it can mean to begin suddenly. Up can mean direction, but to put up with it means to endure. This is why learners often feel that phrasal verbs are playing tricks. The words are familiar, yet the meaning is not always obvious.

Still, this chaos is not a weakness. It is part of English itself. English has grown by mixing many sources, and it often prefers flexible combinations over neat, formal ones. A single Latin-derived verb may sound precise and elegant, but a phrasal verb often feels closer to real speech. Tolerate is correct, but put up with feels human. It sounds like something a real person would say after a long day, not something written on a museum wall.

That is the deeper lesson hidden inside get over. English does not always choose order when it can choose movement. It likes phrases that can stretch, shift, and survive in different situations. A short verb and a small particle can carry emotion, action, and attitude all at once. That is why phrasal verbs are everywhere. They are efficient because they are short. They are chaotic because they are flexible. And they are powerful because they make English feel less like a rule book and more like a living conversation.

In the end, phrasal verbs remind us that language is not only a system. It is also a habit, a rhythm, and a social tool. People speak with them because they are quick and natural. Writers use them because they sound direct. Learners struggle with them because meaning can hide inside everyday words. That tension is exactly what makes them interesting. English does not always build meaning

by making words bigger. Sometimes it builds meaning by making them work together in surprising ways. Get over it is only one example, but it shows the pattern clearly. A tiny phrase can hold movement, recovery, frustration, and even humor. That is not just efficiency. That is English in motion.

The Small Chaos was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by May Makdisi

There is a moment that repeats itself across the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with eerie consistency. Two women sit across from each other — one Israeli, one Palestinian, one Lebanese — and each carries a grief the other recognizes immediately because she is carrying the same thing. The child is gone. And then one woman looks at the other and understands, perhaps for the first time, that the enemy has a mother too. This is the unbearable geometry of the conflict: grief does not take sides, but the machines that produce it do.

A Shared Currency No One Wants

In 2002, a Palestinian sniper killed David Damelin, 28, a philosophy student and peace activist, at a checkpoint in the occupied territories. When his mother, Robi, learned of his death, her first words were: “You cannot take revenge in the name of my child.” [1] She later wrote a letter to the sniper’s family. The reply she received two and a half years later was filled with hatred and justification. Yet her son Eran told her: “Perhaps this is the beginning of a dialogue.” [2]

What Damelin had discovered is that grief may be the only currency that survives political division in this conflict. Not shared history, not shared land, not shared religion — but the specific, biological fact of losing a child. As she later reflected: “I realized that I shared the same pain as the Palestinian mothers in the group and that with our pain we could become the most effective catalyst for change.” [1]

The Architecture of Encounter

Founded in 1995 by bereaved Israeli father Yitzhak Frankenthal, the Parents Circle Families Forum (PCFF) is now a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization of over 800 bereaved families, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025. [3,4] Its encounters are not therapy sessions and not negotiations — they are structured spaces in which people with every political reason to hate each other describe what has been taken from them.

At one such event, Palestinian mother Layla Alsheikh, whose infant son died after Israeli soldiers delayed his ambulance for five hours, sat beside Robi Damelin before an audience at Harvard Divinity School. [5] Alsheikh said: “We share the same tears, even if we had different circumstances, but we’re still human, and there’s nothing worse than losing a child.” [5] These moments are not common. The PCFF is a curated exception. And even within it, conversations can fail, can end not in reconciliation but in mutual, exhausted silence.

What Grief Can and Cannot Do

The asymmetries make these conversations almost impossible to hold in perfect balance. An Israeli mother whose son was killed by a rocket and a Palestinian mother whose daughter died in the retaliatory airstrike are both grieving — but they are not grieving the same political reality. One loss occurred inside a state with an army and international recognition. The other is inside a territory under military occupation, without sovereignty. The grief is equivalent. The context is not.

Bassam Aramin, whose 10-year-old daughter Abir was shot by an Israeli border policeman in 2007, and whose friendship with Israeli bereaved father Rami Elhanan became the subject of Colum McCann’s 2020 novel Apeirogon [6], has been clear about this distinction: “We paid the highest price. We both have ongoing pain and that is what united us. Because it was our kids we have the moral authority to raise our voice and say ‘No more killing.’” [7] He does not claim the pain erases the politics. The moral authority he invokes is parental: it is rooted in loss, not absolution.

Reconciliation or Exhaustion?

In October 2024, over 150 bereaved Palestinians and Israelis gathered by the Dead Sea for the PCFF’s annual conference. Among them: Liora, an Israeli whose son was killed on October 7, 2023 while she was trapped in her safe room, and Hala, a Palestinian woman who lost 57 relatives in Gaza. The two women stood side by side. [4] They resolved nothing. They shared a stage and a sorrow.

One PCFF member, Mohammad Al-Baw from the West Bank, captured the impasse honestly: “I don’t see how Palestinians will forgive Israel for what we did in Gaza, and I don’t see how Israel will forgive Hamas for what they did on October 7th… But I believe that a Palestinian in Khan Younis wants the same thing as me: to raise our kids and to live a quiet life.” [4] The ellipsis between those sentences contains the entire moral architecture of the conflict: the incompleteness, the want, the conditional and fragile “but.”

Reconciliation, in any meaningful political sense, is not something two bereaved mothers can achieve in a room. That requires governments, borders, law, the end of occupation. What the mothers can do is something different: refuse to let their grief become a warrant for further killing. When Robi Damelin placed Khalil Gibran’s words on her son’s grave — “The whole earth is my birthplace and all humans are my brothers” — she was not resolving anything. [1] She was refusing a narrative in which his death had to mean more death.

The ones who have sat in those rooms, looked at the enemy’s mother, and seen a mother, have not solved the conflict. They have done something smaller and more durable: kept the door open. In a region where every door closes violently and permanently, that is not nothing. It may, in fact, be everything.

Sources

[1] Damelin, Robi. Personal testimony. The Forgiveness Project. theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/robi-damelin/;Awakin.org, awakin.org/v2/calls/615/robi-damelin/bio

[2] Ben-Simhon, Coby. “I Forgave Him.” Haaretz, September 24, 2009.

[3] The Parents Circle-Families Forum. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parents_Circle-Families_Forum

[4] American Friends of the Parents Circle-Families Forum. parentscirclefriends.org (Dead Sea Conference, Oct. 2024; Nobel nomination 2025)

[5] Krupnick, Max J. “Toward Reconciliation.” Harvard Magazine, September 2024. harvardmagazine.com/2024/09/israel-palestine-reconciliation

[6] McCann, Colum. Apeirogon. Random House, 2020.

[7] “Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian Parents Say They Are United in Grief.” The Jewish Chronicle, May 11, 2017.

Grief Across Enemy Lines: Bereaved mothers, impossible conversations, and the limits of… was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Palestinian mother narrowly escapes an Israeli airstrike, holding her children close. Across the border, an Israeli mother prays for her teenage son fighting against Hezbollah forces, in desperate hopes of his safe return. A Lebanese woman returns to her home, her children killed by soldiers, which she now finds in pieces. Mothers on every side of the border face similar challenges, safety for their children, yet on opposing sides of the conflict. The question is — can they reconcile?

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa, killing, abducting and injuring dozens of Israelis by a reported 2,500 rockets. Israel’s response was nothing less than devastating — the bombing of Gaza has caused forced mass displacement and starvation due to lack of resources, contributing to what the United Nations officially recognises as genocide. A ceasefire announced 2 years later, has provided little solace to Palestinians, as they pick up the pieces of a land thoroughly destroyed. Outside of Palestine, Israel and Lebanon have called a 10-day truce in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Southern Lebanon — it is reported that around 2,100 people have been killed, with 1.2 million displaced in the South. Al-Jazeera reporter Zeina Khodry stated people “could not wait to return to their homes” and see what “remained” of them, a consequence of the wreckage in the area. Regardless of the casualties, war ensues.

As political tensions continue to rise between Israel, Palestine, and the Levant, there is one perspective repeatedly drowned out by zealous politicians — the mothers. A catastrophic 21,289 have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and 329 children in Southern Lebanon. Countless videos of mothers aiding their dying children have been surfacing on social media, in which the common person can do nothing but watch another victim reduced to a mere statistic in a conflict. Whilst the media may garner sympathy and condolences to these women, it does not aid the psychological impact their children’ s deaths have on their lives, leaving many to navigate this sudden disruption in their familial structure in isolation, anxiety and depression.

Grief, as defined by Cambridge dictionary, is “a feeling of very great sadness, especially at the death of someone.” A simplistic yet objective definition — an emotion shared by every human on earth, and yet, experienced through multiple lenses. For some, grief is too simplistic of a term, as it does not account for the scale of mental deterioration faced in war. For others, the term appeals to universality, encouraging people to sympathise with others regardless of pain. The average person’s grief may involve a loss, a heartbreak, but what burden does the word hold on mothers stuck in conflict?

Mothers in Gaza and Lebanon face ongoing threats of violence, and live in constant fear of IDF soldiers targeting their families. Meanwhile, Israeli mothers woefully send off their sons to serve in their military. On two completely opposing metrics, grief, although a common emotion, is defined by surrounding politics. An Israeli mother interprets grief as the death of their sons

serving in the IDF, painting the Palestinians and Lebanese people as perpetrators. The Palestinian and Lebanese mothers on the other hand view grief through the killings of their children by Israeli forces. Consequently, both see each other as the enemy, regardless of their shared experiences.

Reconciliation is often deemed as impossible. How can women unite themselves whilst being involved in completely different politics, religions, and cultures? Contrary to the odds, there have been instances of mothers campaigning against war.

During the Israel-Lebanon conflict in the 2000s, a movement known as “The Four Mothers — Leaving Lebanon in Peace” movement was founded by parents of Israeli soldiers sent to fight the insurgencies in Lebanon. The Four Mothers are a reference to four biblical Matriarchs, religious imagery promoting peace and advocating for the sanctity of life within the Lebanese and Israeli communities, one of their slogans being “Our husbands were fighting this war while our boys were still babies. We don’t want our grandsons to still be fighting it.” It turned out to be one of the most successful antiwar movements, its repeated activism forcing the Israeli military to withdraw from Lebanon.

The example above illustrates that grief, religion and focus on preserving life can, in fact, unite those even on contrasting sides of a conflict. Although a continued discussion, movements such as this have the power to help women unite, breaking through the political spectrum and preserving what really matters above all — a safe environment for their children. Perhaps in the coming years, the Palestinians, Israelis and the Lebanese mothers can shift politics for eternity, in hopes for a future without displacement, starvation and terror.

Bibliography

• “What happened in Israel? A breakdown of how Hamas attack unfolded” Al Jazeera, 9th Oct 2023
• United Nations. “Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission finds” United Nations, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un commission-finds
• Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity in Gaza” Human Rights Watch Nov. 2024 https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/14/israels-crimes-against-humanity-gaza
• “Lebanese return to devastated south as fragile 10-day truce takes hold” Al Jazeera, 17th Apr. 2026
• UNICEF. “UNICEF in the State of Palestine Humanitarian Situation Update” UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/sop/reports/unicef-state-palestine-humanitarian-situation-update
• UNICEF. “Statement by UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder, on the rise in child casualties amid escalating hostilities in Lebanon” UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-regional-director-middle-east-and-north africa-edouard-beigbeder-5#:~:text=“In%20the%20last%2028%20months,“These%20figures%2 0are%20staggering.
• Dor, Rachel Ben, and Daniel Lieberfeld. “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?: ISRAEL’S ‘FOUR MOTHERS’ AND THE LEGACIES OF SUCCESSFUL ANTIWAR MOVEMENTS.” International Journal of Peace Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 2008, pp. 85–97. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41852970. Accessed 19 Apr. 2026.
• Bendavid, Eran et al. “The effects of armed conflict on the health of women and children.” Lancet (London, England) vol. 397,10273 (2021): 522–532. doi:10.1016/S0140–6736(21)00131–8
• Sabagh, Dan. “Israel closes down or leaves unresolved 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse — report.” The Guardian, 2nd Aug. 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/02/idf-no-fault-conclusion-alleged-war-abuse-case s-report

Mothers Without Borders: A Shared Grief was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Eastern Mediterranean has become a highly contested economic fault line since the 1940s. For decades the maritime boundary between Lebanon and Israel remained undefined and overshadowed by the historical weight of land based hostilities and the absence of good diplomatic relations. However, the discovery of offshore hydrocarbon reserves, specifically the Karish and Qana gas fields transformed this liquid frontier. Rather than acting solely as a stabilising force of economic interdependence, these offshore fields began to function as a new type of military fuse, blurring the line between corporate infrastructure and national security targets.

A Multi-billion- dollar floating production platform represents a physical manifestation of state power in the open ocean. Before the historic October 2022 maritime agreement mediated by the United States, the vulnerability of this infrastructure was very evident. Non-state actors used these offshore rigs in their warfare strategies. In July of 2022, Hezbollah sent three unarmed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) towards the Karish Gas Field. While Israel intercepted and destroyed the drones, this served as a warning to the operators and the Israeli state that the rigs were active targets.

This dynamic places multinational energy corporations in a precarious position. Companies like Energean which operated the Karish field for Israel, and Total Energies which operated Block 9 for Lebanon, demand regional stability to protect their massive investments. Consequently state militaries are forced to act as private security for offshore rigs, entangling national defense strategies with corporate energy interests and elevating stationary platforms to prime military assets.

The path to the 2022 agreement was fraught with heavy territorial demands. In 2022, Lebanon issued Decree 6433, officially claiming a maritime boundary known as ‘Line 23’. Following this, assessments by the Lebanese Army proposed an alternative boundary known as ‘Line 29’. This extended the border further south by 1,430 square kilometers and directly intersected the Karish Field, But the Lebanese government refrained from officially amending Decree 6433 due to ongoing political instability.

US mediator Amos Hochstein grounded the negotiations strictly on Line 23. The resulting deal was a transactional triumph of necessity over ideology. Facing economic collapse , Lebanon also needed the hydrocarbon revenues to stabilise its economy. Israel concurrently required absolute security for the Karish field to commence production and fulfill lucrative energy export commitments.

The finalised agreement bypassed direct diplomatic normalisation through creative commercial structuring. Lebanon secured developmental rights to the Qana Field, while Israel retained full control of the Karish field. To avoid explicit state to state recognition, any cross border financial compensation for the portion of the Qana field extending into Israeli waters is handled entirely through corporate intermediaries, specifically the French multinational Total Energies.

Following this agreement, Israel integrated the Karish field into its national gas network in October 2022 and began production. But Lebanon’s exploration of Qana prospect in block 9 by Total Energies stalled quickly after its commencement. By October 2023, the consortium halted operations after the initial exploration turned up dry and failed to yield commercial quantities of gas. Despite pressure from the Lebanese government to drill a second well, the country’s immediate hopes of escaping its financial crisis via offshore wealth remain deferred.

Can economic interdependence ever outweigh deeply entrenched territorial pride? The trajectory of the Israel-Lebanon maritime dispute shows us a fragile resolution driven by mutual economic desperation. Natural resources served as a catalyst for the problem solving process, removing one highly volatile trigger from the geopolitical chessboard.

Although the danger of war from Gas vessels have been watered out by the 2022 accord, the historical and political issues underlying the Israeli-Lebanon conflict are still unresolved. The tactical realities of interdependence require both sides to find common ground, but until regional conflicts are resolved, these maritime borders will always be in flux and exposed to the next political conflict.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Harari, Michael, and Ahmet Sözen. “Lebanon and Israel: Natural Resources and Security Interests as Catalysts for Conflict Resolution.” In Conflict Resolution in the Mediterranean: Energy as a Potential Game-Changer, edited by Ahmet Sözen, Nimrod Goren, and Camille Limon, 23–36. Amsterdam: Diplomeds — The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, April 2023.
2. Haşıl, Hamza. “Lebanon — Israel Maritime Border Agreement: From the Line of Tension to the Regional Stability.” Policy Brief 226. ORSAM (Center for Middle Eastern Studies), October 2022.
3. Ismail, Abbas. “A Conflict Analysis on the Maritime Border Dispute between Lebanon & Israel.” Master’s thesis, ISCTE — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, October 2021.
4. Wählisch, Martin. “Israel-Lebanon Offshore Oil & Gas Dispute — Rules of International Maritime Law.” ASIL Insights 15, no. 31 (December 2011). American Society of International Law. https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/15/issue/31/israel-lebanon-offshore-oil-gas-dispute-%E2%80%93-rules-international-maritime.
5. Al Jazeera. “Gas Dispute Could Spark Conflict Between Lebanon and Israel.” September 20, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/20/gas-dispute-could-spark-conflict-between-lebanon-and-israel.
6. Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). “The Dispute over the Karish Gas Field: Will Hezbollah Follow Through on Its Threats?” INSS Insight. https://www.inss.org.il/publication/karish-hezbollah/.
7. Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). “The Karish Rig and the Maritime Border Dispute with Lebanon.” INSS Insight. https://www.inss.org.il/publication/karish/.
8. Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA). “Israel-Lebanon Maritime Boundary Agreement: An Assessment.” IDSA Issue Brief. https://idsa.in/publisher/issuebrief/israel-lebanon-maritime-boundary-agreement-an-assessment.
9. Reuters. “Israel, Lebanon Closing in on Maritime Border Deal.” October 6, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-lebanon-closing-maritime-border-deal-2022-10-06/.
10. Reuters. “Israeli Ministers Meet on Lebanon Maritime Deal, Approval Pending.” October 6, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-ministers-meet-lebanon-maritime-deal-approval-pending-2022-10-06/.
11. The Cairo Review of Global Affairs. “Will Lebanon and Israel Finally End Their Maritime Borders Dispute?” https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/will-lebanon-and-israel-finally-end-their-maritime-borders-dispute/.
12. Yale Review of International Studies (YRIS). “Does the Israeli-Lebanese Maritime Border Agreement Have Any Gas Left in its Tank?” https://yris.yira.org/column/does-the-israeli-lebanese-maritime-border-agreement-have-any-gas-left-in-its-tank/.

The Combustible Coast: Sovereignty, Strategy and Eastern Mediterranean Gas Field was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In a bustling clinic in Rawalpindi, my aunt clutches her immigration papers. Her eyes dart between the English forms and the harried receptionist. She’s from Gaza, displaced after the 2023 escalations, and English is her newest hurdle. “Gulalai, beta, what does ‘deportation’ mean here?” she whispers. At 16, I’m no longer just a niece. I’m the bridge. No textbook prepared me for this, but necessity did. In that moment, “deportation” is not a vocabulary word. It is a shield.

This is not unique to my family. Across the Middle East and its diasporas, from West Bank checkpoints to Lebanese refugee camps, English learners become unplanned interpreters when systems demand it. I’ve read that many Syrian refugee kids in Jordan end up translating for their parents at hospitals. They explain medical terms like “hypertension” even when they’re scared or tired (UNHCR, “Jordan Refugee Response Plan,” 2022). In Palestine, where millions of refugees deal with complicated Israeli paperwork or international aid, children in East Jerusalem schools often interpret at parent-teacher meetings (PCBS, “Education and Language Barriers in Occupied Territories,” 2021). What textbooks call “phrasal verbs,” life turns into survival tools: “fill out this form,” “sign here,” “follow up next week.”

Responsibility teaches what classrooms cannot: stakes. I remember stumbling over “eligibility criteria” because if I got it wrong, my aunt’s residency could be delayed for months. Suddenly, all those passive voice exercises from English class made sense. “The application will be reviewed” was not just grammar. It was a promise I had to get exactly right. Classrooms pretend to create stakes with role-plays. Life makes mistakes dangerous. I heard about a Lebanese girl who translated “evacuation orders” for her mother at a Beirut hospital while rockets were falling nearby during the 2024 tensions (HRW, “Lebanon: Civilian Harm in Cross-Border Strikes,” 2024). She was not thinking about perfect English. She just wanted her mother to be safe.

Necessity turbocharges motivation, too. When you are “needed,” learning stops feeling like homework. It becomes part of who you are. Palestinian teenagers helping at food banks or legal aid offices gain confidence that helps them everywhere. One study found young interpreters in the West Bank spoke English better than students in regular classes (British Council, “English for Integration: Palestine Youth Report,” 2023). I felt this when I explained my aunt’s story to a caseworker. My shaky sentences, “She fled because of the bombings,” suddenly sounded clear and strong.

But classrooms lag. They drill grammar without grit. What if English classes worked like real life? Imagine IGCSE students helping Afghan or Syrian families at local clinics. There was a program in Amman that improved students’ English by 25% in

just six months (Mercy Corps, “Language as Integration Tool,” 2023). Or schools could use apps that feel urgent, with timers and realistic scenarios. Suddenly, English becomes a tool you need, not a test you study for.

Yet this unplanned role extracts a toll. Kids carry adult responsibilities and get tired or resentful. Research shows language brokering can lead to burnout (Chao, “The Price of Being a Bridge,” 2019). After helping my aunt at the clinic, I felt proud but exhausted. Schools should help these young interpreters, not just use their skills.

In the end, the unplanned interpreter reveals English’s raw power: a bridge built in crisis, spanning Palestine’s grief to Rawalpindi’s clinics. Necessity does not just teach words. It forges voices that endure. Classrooms, take note. Create the need, and fluency follows.

References:

● British Council. (2023). English for Integration: Palestine Youth Report. ● Chao, R. (2019). “The Price of Being a Bridge.” Journal of Child Psychology. ● HRW. (2024). “Lebanon: Civilian Harm in Cross-Border Strikes.” ● Mercy Corps. (2023). “Language as Integration Tool.” Jordan Pilot. ● PCBS. (2021). “Education and Language Barriers in Occupied Territories.” ● UNHCR. (2022). “Jordan Refugee Response Plan.”

The Unplanned Interpreter: When Family Need Forges Fluency was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cancer.

A six-letter word that shatters the tranquility of life.

A mother, unable to understand the language of her impending doom as the oncologist speaks, turns toward her ten-year-old daughter in search of meaning. The child, suddenly the oldest one in the room, had already escaped the wars of ethnic cleansing, yet had not expected to be called into another battle so soon.

The doctor, deeply empathetic and aware of the girl’s hesitation, pauses, then apologizes. He explains that the Arabic translator is unavailable, on maternity leave, having returned home to Lebanon in mid-March.

In these moments, language loses its softness and becomes power, responsibility, and consequence. The young girl is no longer just a learner struggling through vocabulary or comprehension. She becomes the bridge through which life-changing information passes. There is no room for hesitation, no safety net for mistakes, and no reassurance that mistakes are part of learning. Every word she chooses carries weight, and every pause feels dangerous. What responsibility teaches her in that instant is something no textbook can, which is how to listen beyond words, to understand under pressure, and to speak not just correctly, but clearly and precisely. Because here, precision is not rewarded with grades but with understanding.

Unfortunately, moments like this are never rare. Across the world, countless learners step into this role of the unplanned interpreter. At clinics, banks, schools, and government offices, often long before they are ready. And yet, it is precisely this unpreparedness that accelerates their growth. When language is no longer optional, when it becomes a necessity rather than an academic requirement, learning sharpens. Fluency is no longer built slowly through repetition but forced into existence through circumstances. The mind learns quickly when it’s for survival. Vocabulary is not memorized; it’s needed, and grammar is not practiced; it’s used. In these situations, necessity becomes the most unforgiving, but the most effective and best teacher.

At the heart of this transformation lies motivation, but not the kind, inspiring drive by grades or examinations, but something far more human. They’re not translating to succeed. They are translating because someone they love is depending on them. The sense of being needed creates a level of focus that classrooms and exams can never replicate. It is deeply personal, emotionally investing, and impossible to ignore. Unlike traditional learning environments, where disengagement and lack of discipline carry fewer consequences, here, disengagement is not an option. The stakes are real, and so the effort becomes real. In this way, being needed becomes the ultimate motivator, pushing learners beyond their perceived limits.

However, this raises an important question: If real stakes create real learning, how can classrooms begin to reflect this? Traditional education often operates in a space that is safe and welcoming. Mistakes are expected and encouraged, consequences are minimal, and tasks rarely extend beyond real-life scenarios. While this provides comfort, it also removes urgency. To bridge this gap, classrooms must move towards experiences that demand genuine engagement. This could include realistic simulations, time-pressured tasks, or opportunities to communicate with real audiences. Learning should feel purposeful, not performative. When students understand that their words matter beyond the classroom, their approach to language begins to shift.

Ultimately, the unplanned interpreter reveals a simple but undeniable, powerful truth: that language is learned most effectively when it is lived. The ten-year-old girl, standing between her mother and the doctor, is not fluent because she has mastered a syllabus, but because she has been placed in a moment where language matters. Her experience exposes the gap between knowing a language and needing it. And perhaps that is the lesson education must take forward, which is not to replicate hardship, but to recreate meaning. Because when language carries consequence, it is no longer just knowledge, it’s survival.

Lost in Translation, Found in Responsibility was originally published in YouthPLAssociation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.