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On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, as Mikah Bein laid in her dorm room bed relaxing for fall break, she received a text in her family WhatsApp group chat.

Bein’s mother told her a war had broken out in Israel — home to a majority of her family, including her sister and father. Because she had grown accustomed to hearing stories of conflicts throughout the region, Bein said she didn’t initially realize the severity of the situation.

“In my head, I was like, ‘OK, another war.’ It’s something that, unfortunately, is very casual, and I didn’t really understand how escalated it was,” Bein said. “It wasn’t until maybe a few hours later when we realized what had actually happened.”

On that day, Hamas launched an attack on an Israeli music festival, reportedly killing around 1,200 civilians and taking around 250 hostage. In response, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza, marking the start of the current Israel-Hamas war. A little over a year after Oct. 7, around 1,200 Israelis and over 41,000 Palestinians have died in the war.

As the world watches the war on the news, several Syracuse University students — including Bein — feel its impact through firsthand accounts from family living in Israel and Gaza. Many told The Daily Orange they’ve struggled to balance student life over the past year while knowing their loved ones are suffering thousands of miles away.

One Palestinian-American SU senior — who requested not to be named due to concerns for her safety on-campus — said she also first heard about the Oct. 7 attacks through her family’s WhatsApp group chat. She was sitting on the couch with family and friends, celebrating her brother’s birthday, when the messages came in.

As texts recounting the events after the initial attack flooded in from family members — describing missiles and gunfire — the student said she initially didn’t consider it “out of the ordinary.” She said that because she’s had family in the West Bank for most of her life, she was used to hearing stories of military campaigns and violence.

The severity of the current conflict began to hit home in the week following the attack, she said. The senior’s then-pregnant sister and her husband, who were living with their in-laws in the West Bank, told her the Israel Defense Forces had begun patrolling their neighborhood. In one instance, while they were on the phone, soldiers entered and searched her sister’s home, she said.

“We were on FaceTime, and we were just talking about her pregnancy … and she just all of a sudden looked up and hung up the phone,” the senior said. “(We knew) something must have happened, and we didn’t hear from her until the next day.”

The student said her sister and brother-in-law were able to leave the West Bank in time for the baby’s birth. Still, much of her family remains there, and many have lost their jobs due to the political turmoil. They’ve also continued to face surprise searches and other difficulties from military officials, she said.

Bein said she remembers a time when she FaceTimed her father while he was visiting Israel to help a friend on his farm. Her father, who is disabled, heard sirens warning of incoming missiles while they were on the phone.

“He didn’t have time to run into the shelter in time,” Bein said. “And it really shocked him. He was like, ‘Wow, I couldn’t make it in time, and I was just lucky enough that I wasn’t near the rockets.”

Because of the conflict, several students said communicating with their families has been challenging. The senior student said her family in the West Bank has struggled to pay their phone bills. She said her immediate family has had to send money “just to speak to them.”

Other students said communicating with their families has taken an emotional toll on them. They described feeling helpless as they listened to loved ones recount the daily hardships of living amid the war, while being unable to take action themselves due to the physical distance.

Julia Weinreich, an Israeli-American sophomore, said the tone of her messages to family has drastically shifted since the start of the war. Weinreich, who has family members currently serving in the IDF, said casual conversations with her family members now feel trivial in the context of the violence.

“When I talk to my family in Israel, it’s very different now,” Weinreich said. “You’re not texting them, ‘Hi, how are you?’ the same way you were a year ago. You’re texting them, ‘Hi. How are you?’ in the sense of, ‘Are you alive?’”

Weinreich said that in the semester following the attacks, she struggled to balance her school responsibilities while constantly feeling anxious and unsettled about what her family might be experiencing. She said some attitudes on campus toward the war contributed to her anxiety, initially making her hesitant to openly show her Jewish and Israeli identity.

In the months following Oct. 7, the U.S. saw record highs in recorded antisemitic incidents. The country also saw a rise in Islamophobic incidents in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, with an increase in the last three months of 2023, NPR reported. Tensions regarding the war also rose at college campuses across the country.

In response to the war, numerous protests broke out on college campuses, including at SU. Over 60 colleges and universities, including SU, saw students set up encampment demonstrations in support of Palestine, The New York Times reported. More than 3,000 people were arrested or detained in association with these encampments.

Last April, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at SU occupied Shaw Quadrangle for 16 days, calling on the university to support a ceasefire and divest from Israel, among other demands. During the encampment, about 100 demonstrators walked across campus to show solidarity with Israel.

Over the past year, Weinreich said the Jewish community on campus has helped her feel more comfortable with outwardly expressing her identity and her support for Israel.

Weinreich said she felt initially hesitant to wear her Star of David necklace at the Peace Vigil for Israel held by Syracuse Hillel and the Chabad House Jewish Student Center on Oct. 11, 2023. At a similar vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, though, she said she wore the necklace with a renewed sense of pride. Attending both events felt less like a choice and more like a moral responsibility, she said

In contrast, one Palestinian-American SU sophomore, who also asked not to share her name for safety concerns, said she thinks people on campus have largely ignored non-Israeli perspectives of the conflict. She said she felt disappointed with university officials for not releasing any statements about the war aside from the two that were released on Oct. 9 and Oct. 16, 2023.

In its May 7 Syracuse Statement on Free Expression and Free Inquiry, the university said it would no longer make institutional statements on current events “except under the most extraordinary circumstances.”

Over the past year, the sophomore said she’s continuously received updates from her family in Jerusalem and other relatives in Jordan. Hearing about threats to restrict local mosques in Jerusalem and missiles flying over Jordan was shocking, she said, though not unfamiliar. The current Israel-Hamas war has drawn increased attention to the ongoing struggles faced by Palestinian communities, she said.

“(For) everybody who’s constantly had family there., it’s just not anything new. This is just kind of another reoccurrence that’s been happening for the past 76 years,” the sophomore said. “It’s just gotten worse. I have never thought it would have come to the point where it’s been totally documented.”

On campus, she said Palestinian and Arab-American communities don’t feel safe expressing their opinions on the conflict. She said even openly describing herself as Palestinian has become a“political statement. Students of both Israeli and Palestinian backgrounds echoed this sentiment, saying they don’t feel comfortable discussing their perspectives on the conflict outside of their respective communities.

All of the students who spoke with The D.O. said there’s a general lack of understanding about the complexities of the war. The Palestinian senior said that if people from both sides of the conflict took the time to engage in civil discussions on campus about the personal effects of the war, they could develop a shared understanding of the challenges each side faces.

“It’s been really hard, and I almost felt selfish for admitting that it was hard, because I wasn’t the one in direct battle,” Bein said.

Asst. News Editor Delia Rangel contributed reporting to this article.

Published on October 31, 2024 at 2:36 am

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu