In times of war, pain pulls at us. Fear urges us to retreat into binaries, but history shows us that these divisions, however emotionally satisfying in the moment, do nothing to heal. They only deepen wounds and prolong suffering.

At SNS, we work with young people every day who are trying to make sense of a world on fire. They are exposed to images of devastation, polarised narratives, and a culture of outrage that tells them they must pick a team. But there is another way - one that is harder, braver, and infinitely more humane.

Standing up for human values beyond taking sides is not betrayal. It is moral clarity.

To cry out for starving families in Gaza is not to condone the actions of Hamas. To express grief for the children buried beneath rubble is not to turn your back on the victims of 7 October. It is to recognise that the suffering of civilians is never a legitimate tool of war. Never.

The people of Gaza - half of them children - are not militants. They are human beings, and right now they are experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. The latest reports describe entire families lost, hospitals without power, and communities surviving on animal feed. We must not look away. 

Nor should we lose sight of other suffering in the region that is often forgotten: the Druze community in southern Syria, for example, caught between warring factions, ignored and besieged, their humanity made invisible by political expediency. It is not a betrayal of Palestinians to join the voices of many Israelis calling for their protection.

Some will say that taking this stance is naïve, or that it waters down the righteousness of a cause. But protecting civilians in war is not a political position - it is a human one. And it is possible to condemn the actions of governments or armed groups while still affirming the humanity of the people who live under them.

Civilians are not extensions of their leaders. A Palestinian child in Gaza, a Jewish child in Israel, a Druze child in Suwayda - they are not the enemy. They are not responsible for the missiles, the sieges, the violence, or the propaganda. They are simply people - caught in the machinery of something much bigger, something much crueller.

So let us have the courage to reject the pressure to demonise. Let us resist the voices calling for more division, more vengeance, more hate.

Let us stand instead for something universal: the protection of life, the rejection of dehumanisation, and the refusal to be silent in the face of suffering.

Now is not the time to entrench. Now is the time not for one side to gain victory over the other but to unite for humanity, for all of us. Because in the end, what will save us, is each other.