Driving across the divide

Available for over a year

Cars driven by Israeli volunteers wait at check points to give lifts to ill Palestinian to hospital appointments, it’s what the volunteers call “one hour of peace”. Since Hamas’ brutal attacks on 7 October, it is become an increasingly rare space for Israelis and Palestinians to speak and build trust and connection amid the trauma of war. Most Palestinians from the occupied West Bank are prevented from travelling to Israel, among them patients in desperate need of specialised medical treatment. Some days there are more than 80 car rides, volunteer drivers, waiting at the checkpoint, by the separation barrier that divides Israel and the West Bank. Meanwhile in Gaza, patients who used to receive medical care in Israel are among around 20,000 patients on a long list awaiting medical evacuation. Jerusalem reporter Naomi Scherbel-Ball sits in the back seat and listens in to how they have survived more than two years of a devastating war, displaced from their homes and reliant on a health system all but destroyed by war. She meets the Israeli volunteers, who had friends and family killed on 7 October. Despite the war, some have stayed in touch with the patients they used to drive from Gaza, waiting for the day when they can meet and drive those in need to hospital in Israel once again. (Photo: Subha and Bassam Adi from Beit Ummar in the West Bank meet Israeli volunteer Myron Joshua at the security gate blocking their town.. Credit: Jimmy Michael)