Former Combatants Build playground in East Jerusalem
Palestinian Bassam Aramin served seven years in jail for planning an attack against Israeli soldiers and chose no more violence. Yonatan Shapira was a Captain in the Israeli Air Force Reserves when he and a group of Israeli pilots signed the “Pilots Letter,” refusing to fly attack missions in the Palestinian Territories because they believe that these attacks are illegal, immoral and do not serve the security of Israel. In 2005 Bassam and Yonatan were among the founders of Combatants for Peace. In 2007, when Bassam‘s ten year old daughter Abri was killed outside her school by an Israeli soldier’s rubber-coated steel bullet, her parents sought a way to help her bereaved classmates. They asked the Rebuilding Alliance to work with Combatants for Peace to build a playground at Abir’s school, and so the project, Abir’s Garden: a Safe Place to Grow, was born. For more information: www.RebuildingAlliance.org, and www.CombatantsForPeace.org