My mother had a plan for peace for Israel and the Palestinians – but she was killed on 7 October

Renowned activist Vivian Silver died in the Hamas attack on 7 October. Now, six months after Israel’s ground offensive inside Gaza began, her son Yonatan Zeigen writes on their shared belief of what’s needed for both the Israeli and Palestinian people

Yonatan Zeigen (left) with his mother Vivian Silver (Yonatan Zeigen)

I woke up on 7 October to the sound of a rocket siren. My mother, Vivian Silver, was alone in her house in the Be’eri kibbutz, right next to Gaza. We had just started messaging each other when she wrote: “They are inside the house.”

We both put down our phones to stop the intruders finding her. But when we realised that these would be our last words together, we wrote messages of love and parting. Then she stopped replying.

At first, I thought she had been captured by Hamas and taken as a hostage into Gaza. It was only later I found out she had been killed when her home was gutted and burned.