As important as history is in classes, and as crucial as learning about the Revolutionary War and how countries and many others came to be is for us, history is happening right in front of our eyes every day, and it is flying over the heads of people who aren’t experiencing it. On Oct. 7, a military group of Palestine blew up multiple communication buildings in Israel, along with killing over one thousand two hundred civilians at a music festival and even kidnapping around one hundred and fifty more, starting a war between Israel and the Palestinian government group, Hamas. Even though this is not affecting us in Pennsylvania currently, it is still an important part of history and our lives as a whole.

A question that immediately arises is, “Why would someone do this?” The answer is one that we can’t be exactly sure of, but from what we have gathered, here are a few reasons as to why Hamas attacked Israel. First, Hamas is the governing group of the Gaza Strip in Israel, which is a chunk of the country that is governed by Islams, as opposed to Israel, which is mainly made up of Jews. Even though the two religions don’t exactly get along well, the Islams are greatly opposed to the other religion being in such proximity to them. A suspecting factor of the initial attack of the Hamas was due to the line between these two religions beginning to thin, and the mixing of the two gradually becoming more normalized.

Another factor could be that Benjamin Netanyahu has recently been re-elected as the Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu has been known to have an opposing view from Islams on a lot of governmental topics, including who he recently appointed to be Israel’s minister of national security. Itamar Ben-Gvir is known to be against people of the Islamic religion and even has persecuted them without reason previously. As stated on NPR news, Ben-Gvir was, “… convicted for eight times in inciting violence against Arabs,” This fact gave Hamas, along with motivation, help in how to attack secretly, as Israelites were so focused on protesting the new minister of national security and their government, that their own defense was down at the time that this occurred.

But what exactly happened on that tragic day? During the Tribe of Nova music festival in Israel, citizens were taken aback by 168 communication buildings of Israel being blown up, and witnessing thousands of innocent people either kidnapped or killed at gunpoint of the Hamas soldiers and the explosions, with those harmed including soldiers of the Israelite military, parents, children, and elderly. Israel responded with airstrikes that harmed Palestinians in many ways, such as killing over one thousand of them, displacing over two hundred thousand, and cutting off supplies of food, electricity, and supplies. All credits of the statistics and number of people harmed go to NPR news, but are backed with various other news stations.

How is this relevant to readers? As tactfully dismissed above, included in the list of those harmed by the attack on Oct. 7, are American civilians that were visiting Israel. This goes on to prove that even those of us who are not directly in the middle of the action are still affected by the aftermath of the events.

Friends, family members, and pillars of communities have been lost from all three countries (The Gaza Strip, Israel, and the United States) due to this event. Ignorance may be blissful, but it will not discard what happened to those lost. And perhaps bliss is more of a temporary fix than anything else. A painkiller in the grand headache of life. But what draws the line between the want of ignorance and apathy? Every event has importance in history, no matter what the death toll or severity it holds. Every life taken has importance, for even if the deceased was not close to you, they meant so much to so many people. Each of those lives lost was a life that was wrongfully taken on both sides of this war.

As said in history classes, history repeats itself. And the most impactful way to potentially save thousands, if not millions of lives in the future is by learning through mistakes and wars such as this dispute between Hamas and Israel. How could you stop something from happening if you don’t know what is going on around you?

As small of a step as it is, stay updated on world news, for it could potentially prevent a war like this from happening to you.

Alyssa Wismar wrote this for The Squire newspaper and is a junior at Eisenhower High School.