A Muslim in Israel: What I found in my search for peace

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JERUSALEM — For Muslims, Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the top three most important sites, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. In the same compound on Temple Mount as the golden Dome of the Rock that rises over Jerusalem, it is etched into the minds of many Muslims. Growing up, I was taught to see Jerusalem, with its rich and tumultuous history, as the sole property of Muslims, unjustly occupied by Jews. This city has survived wars and massacres perpetrated by Christians, Muslims and Jews alike.

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Born in a remote, picturesque village in the mountains of central Afghanistan, I spent much of my childhood surrounded by the beauty of nature. I had little understanding of the world.

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In the 1990s, our only link to the outside world was the crackling voice of the radio my father owned, a rare wealth in our isolated valley. We listened to news about Afghanistan’s civil war, as well as world news, including the conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

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When the shadow of the Taliban’s first reign, from 1996 to 2001, fell upon us, my family fled as refugees to Pakistan. The neighbouring country not only offered shelter, but continued the familiar narrative of hate for Israel that we had known back home. Pakistan is a land where its government inserts a last page in passports that says its citizens can travel to all countries except Israel.

The arrival of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in 2001, and the fall of the rule of the Taliban, opened a new chapter in our lives. We returned to our country, where a surge of media and access to the internet connected us to the world, and opportunities to read and study.

I witnessed and still carry the terror of war and have a profound understanding of its destructive nature. As a survivor, like countless Afghans, of Taliban fundamentalism, I yearn for peace and coexistence. It is an ache that punctures the soul to see innocents, children and the elderly among them, killed across the globe, whether in Ukraine, Israel or Gaza.

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On Oct. 7, 2023, as I scrolled through my phone, I was struck by horrifying footage: Hamas terrorists descending upon Israel, seizing hostages, setting homes ablaze in a rampage, dragging lifeless bodies through the streets of Gaza. Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, including children, and the widespread destruction in Gaza caused by Israeli airstrikes have been devastating to me.

It drove me to journey to Israel late last year, a trip made possible by Sharaka, a non-profit organization born in the wake of the historic Abraham Accords. Dedicated to promoting peace in the Middle East and fostering bridges between Israel and Muslims worldwide, it offered me a chance, as a journalist, to see beyond the shadows of my past and seek a new understanding of Israel and Jews, their history, culture, struggles and beliefs.

The delegation, consisting of fewer than a dozen people, mostly journalists and civil activists from Pakistan, was accompanied by members of Sharaka and an Israeli journalist working for a local newspaper. We headed south.

Our first stop was Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel just three to four kilometres from the Gaza Strip. The place is no longer the vibrant enclave it once was. Before the October 7 massacre by Hamas, it housed nearly 400 people; a community full of life and love.

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On our way there, we were briefed on how to take cover if a rocket came from Gaza, a grim reality Israelis have faced for years — under constant threat, peace perpetually feels out of reach. This reality reminded me of my own experiences in Afghanistan, never knowing if you’d make it home alive at night, always wondering if a suicide attack might kill you, as it did thousands of Afghans.

Nir Oz is now mostly in ruins and abandoned, home to only a small number of its remaining community members. Irit Lahav, a survivor of the attack, and the daughter of one of the kibbutz’s founders, welcomed us at the main entrance. Still reeling, she shared her story of survival as our conversation was interrupted by the sound of explosions from Gaza. I was not bothered by those booms, having witnessed so much of the same back home, but it was a stark reminder of the relentless war, the absence of peace.

When Hamas Nukhba Brigade fighters stormed her kibbutz, Lahav and her young daughter hid in a safe room for nearly 12 hours without food, water or a toilet. “We communicated by text message,” she recounted, explaining how they stayed silent to avoid detection.

They were planning to kill me.

Irit Lahav, Nir Oz survivor

After their rescue, she learned the devastating toll: about a quarter of her community, more than a hundred people, had been killed or taken hostage.

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Lahav and two other Nir Oz residents had been strong advocates for peace with Palestinians and Gazans. She worked tirelessly to help Gazan children with cancer or other serious illnesses, navigating bureaucratic hurdles, securing funding, even driving them to Israel for treatment.

“While I was hiding in my safe room with my daughter,” she said, standing inside a burnt-out house adorned with pictures of its owners, who were killed by Hamas, “I felt deeply hurt because Palestinians knew three people from this kibbutz were helping them.”

When asked if she still feels the same compassion for Palestinians, she replied: “No. They were planning to kill me.” In return for her years of goodwill and assistance, Hamas left Lahav with a shattered kibbutz, a community in ruins. She offered flowers, but they returned bullets, she said.

A 15-minute drive from Nir Oz, in the middle of a desert, is the site of the Nova music festival massacre. Once a venue for celebration, it has now become a graveyard honouring the hundreds of people killed there on that tragic day.

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Under the afternoon Mediterranean sun, photographs of the victims, mostly young men and women, line the site, each accompanied by small biography tags. The memorials are surrounded by flowers and Israeli flags that flutter in the gentle breeze.

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At one corner of the venue, we meet Tomer Hava, a 24-year-old reservist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who had recently spent months on duty in Gaza. Struggling with limited English, he recounted how he narrowly escaped the Hamas attack at Nova while celebrating with close friends. For hours, he hid in the nearby fields. Tomer has also lost his younger brother in Gaza, killed while fighting terrorism.

When asked if he had ever killed civilians in Gaza, Tomer firmly said no. But explaining the complexities of guerrilla warfare or the tactics used by insurgent groups proved difficult for him.

Every war, whether between two armies or a nation and a terrorist organization, claims civilian lives. This, I know so well, is the ugliest aspect of conflict, whether caused by the Taliban, U.S. troops or the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban often used civilian homes as shields, forcing locals to provide shelter, food and vantage points to attack troops. According to Tomer, Hamas employs similar tactics, using people’s homes as shields in Gaza.

* * *

Israel has many sacred sites, and I explored several of them. In Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in the fourth century, is one of Christianity’s holiest places. It welcomes visitors of all faiths. I also visited the Western Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem, where non-Jewish visitors are required to wear a kippah, a traditional Jewish head covering.

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Just a few metres away lies Al-Aqsa Mosque. My Israeli friend accompanied me to the main entrance, which is guarded by Israeli security forces. After checking my passport and visa, they allowed me through. Inside, Jordanians and Palestinians handle administrative duties.

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“Are you Muslim?” one of the Palestinians asked. “Yes, I am,” I replied with a smile.

“No,” he snapped, looking angry. “Say ‘Alhamdulillah,’” referring to the Arabic phrase Muslims use to praise God for blessings.

“Read me the Shahada,” another demanded, referring to the Islamic oath, one of the five Pillars of Islam.

“You have my passport,” I said. “It says Afghanistan, a Muslim country. Do you doubt me?”

They questioned my faith. I’ve visited numerous Muslim holy sites in Afghanistan and Pakistan, yet never faced such scrutiny. The experience of a Muslim questioning another Muslim’s faith at such a revered site was painful. It left me unsettled.

“I think it’s disrespectful to test whether I’m Muslim,” I said.

“If you don’t recite the Shahada, I won’t let you in,” he replied.

Later, I asked Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, of the Global Imams Council, which is comprised of scholars from all sects of Islam, about my experience at Al-Aqsa Mosque. “Such treatment at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque is unacceptable and has no basis in Islamic law. Islam does not mandate testing individuals on their faith as a condition for entry into a mosque, nor does it require Muslims to prove their religious identity through recitation,” he said.

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“Al-Aqsa Mosque, like all houses of God, is meant to be a place of worship and spiritual reflection, open to all who seek to enter. Denying a Muslim access based on arbitrary assessments is both unjust and un-Islamic, as it disregards the fundamental Islamic principle that a person’s declaration of faith is sufficient to affirm their identity as a Muslim,” the Imam said.

According to Tawhidi, demanding the recitation of the Shahada as a prerequisite for entry not only violates personal dignity, but risks imposing conversion elements upon non-Muslims who may not fully understand its implications. That is contrary to Islamic ethics and the principle that faith must be embraced willingly and with full awareness.

* * *

Throughout Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and even in Israel’s rural areas, you see the toll of war on families. There are photos of Hamas victims everywhere, even greeting you at Ben Gurion Airport. The pain is visible.

At Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, I met several people whose family members remain in Hamas custody. They were living in tents in the square as they wait. As a member of Hazaras, a persecuted minority in Afghanistan, and a journalist, I’ve covered the Taliban’s abductions of my people in Kabul. I asked an elderly woman in one of the tents how her daily life had changed since her loved one was taken. Tears welled in her eyes. “I used to have a normal life. Now I can’t eat, work or live. I’m always thinking about the hostages.” Waiting slowly kills you.

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Outside the tents, men and women, mostly elderly, gathered in a circle, singing songs with tragic lyrics in Hebrew while holding portraits of the victims of the October 7 massacre. In the square, families of the victims have recreated a mock Hamas tunnel that is open to the public — a dark, closed space filled with the sounds of explosions. On the walls, people have written messages and marked the number of days their loved ones had been held captive.

Later, in Tel Aviv, I was surprised to meet a young girl who said, “I am an Afghan Jew.” I began speaking Dari, one of Afghanistan’s national languages, but she replied in English, explaining that she was born in the United States and now lives in Israel. Excited to meet someone from her ancestral land, she called her grandmother, who lives in New York, and handed me the phone. Her grandmother spoke fluent Dari with me, despite having been away from Afghanistan for more than half a century. She reminisced about her time studying at a school in Kabul and described the freedom and absence of antisemitism during Afghanistan’s last monarchy.

“Those were the great years of Afghanistan,” she said. “There was peace.” When the call ended, her granddaughter, Sarit Gad, told me, “You made her entire month.”

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Afghanistan once had a small Jewish community, but over the course of different regimes and civil wars, nearly all of them fled the country. The last known Jew fled in 2021, when the Taliban took control once again.

Save A Child’s Heart, a hospital in Tel Aviv, treats children with complex heart conditions, mostly from Africa and Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Since 2017, it has saved five Afghan children, including one in 2022. This was during Taliban rule — the same group that supports Hamas, named a school after Yahya Sinwar, a Palestinian militant and Hamas leader (killed in 2024), and celebrates Hamas’s attacks on Israelis.

* * *

Israel is a multicultural, multi-ethnic nation, a fact rarely highlighted. Some 1.2 million Arab Israelis enjoy social freedoms and political representation. About 250,000 Bedouins and Druze have equal rights alongside other Israelis. I met members of both communities, some whom lost family in the Hamas attack simply for being Israeli.

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On the road to Hebron in the West Bank (known as Al-Khalil in Arabic), Israelis must travel in armoured buses. As the road passes through enclaves where Palestinians live, parts of it are flanked by tall concrete barriers to deter gunfire from surrounding areas. Bullet marks were visible on the window of the bus beside my seat.

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Hebron, one of the oldest cities in the Levant, is a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians, with a long history of conflict and contested land. The Tomb of Patriarchs and Matriarchs lies beneath a Crusader-era church. Here, in a series of caves, are buried Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, Jacob, their tombs adorned with inscriptions in Arabic — dating back to the Ottoman era — and in Hebrew.

Orthodox Jews sing, study and pray in the synagogue section of the Tomb, and Muslims pray and worship in their Mosque of Ibrahimi. Two sides of the same Tomb. Male infants are also circumcised here, a procedure performed by a traditional doctor. Once it’s done, the crowd breaks into song and the father reveals the baby’s name.

When the Muslim cleric delivers the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, the doors remain closed, and the Jewish worshippers are held inside until the call for prayer concludes. Israeli Jews are not permitted in the mosque. A large contingent of Israeli soldiers for the protection of Jews are visible here and throughout Hebron.

As I left the ancient city, I wondered how Abraham would have felt, seeing his Jewish and Muslim descendants locked in conflict rather than living in peace. As one local said, “We are all the grandchildren of Abraham. Why shouldn’t we live in peace?”

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