Imagine being at a music festival with your mates, then having to flee for your life.
You might have seen the videos of what happened at the music festival, Supernova in Israel this weekend.
In the early hours of the morning of Saturday 7th October, the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked festival goers at the trance music festival in Southern Israel. In response, Israel fought back and now over 15,000 people have died on both sides.
The news stories, images and videos that you might have seen over the past few days can be a lot to get your head around.
I wanted to understand why the militant group Hamas are now at war with Israel.
In this episode of Noted, I’m taking you through the history and context of the long-standing tensions between Israel and Palestinian territories and hearing from the people affected.
We hear from Tammy Shur, a member of the Israeli Defence Force. She said: "The price Hamas will pay for this inhumane attack on Israelis will be one for the history books."
Yara Eid is a Palestinian journalist. She told The News Movement: "I lost my best friend, who's a war journalist, on Saturday morning. I honestly don't know if my mums going to be alive or not."
You can hear the impact of this shocking violence on both of these women.
To understand why this has happened, we need to know the history of the long-standing tensions between Israel and Palestinian territories.
I’m joined by TNM’s Lucy Marley who has been following this story. Lucy shared that this is the most serious attack on Israel in a generation.
She said: "It's a conflict that has been going on for decades, not days. It comes down to an argument about who is ‘the rightful owner to the land’ - the group behind Hamas are calling for the destruction of Israel and they want to create a Palestinian state. Palestinians believe that their land was stolen after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 but many Israelis believe their land is theirs - this is the source of this conflict."
Not everyone in the Gaza strip supports Hamas, but they control most aspects of their life in the territory.
We know that this was an attack that was years in the making, we find out why it has erupted now. This doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon so it’s important to understand some of what’s happening in the Middle East right now.
Understanding the conflict in 15 minutes: Israel and Palestine is available to listen to now.
You can drop me a WhatsApp with your thoughts on this episode +447723735241