On October 7, 2025, Lick-Wilmerding High School commemorated the two-year anniversary of the attacks on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza with an all-school Community Gathering.
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, primarily civilians, and took 251 hostages. In the 24 months that followed, Israel’s campaign in Gaza killed over 65,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, including between 17,000 and 20,000 children. In this year’s all-school assembly focused on grief and mourning, students from the Jewish Student Union (JSU) and South Asian Middle Eastern affinity group (SAME) shared poems, reflections and prayers about lives lost both in the October 7 attacks and the Israel-Hamas War.
Student organizers and faculty helpers intended to create a day of unity and belonging—an environment that required a degree of depoliticization to foster. “The [purpose] is not to politicize the day. It’s really to be in community with one another, to listen to each other, to lean in for understanding, and really, again, to promote unity and peace,” JR Arimboanga, Director of Student Inclusion and Ethnic Studies, said.
The day started with a schoolwide Community Gathering featuring poems, prayers and reflections through which students from SAME and JSU grappled with the human suffering unfolding in the Middle East.
Matthew Oakland, LWHS Interim Dean of Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, and Arimboanga framed the assembly with a focus on healing, inviting community members to “prioritize the humanity of one another.”
They also shared a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that encapsulated their vision for LWHS’s engagement with the war: “Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”
Then, JSU leaders Sofia Susal ’26 and Noa Solomon-Carmel ’26 shared the Mourner’s Kaddish, a Jewish prayer recited when in mourning and to commemorate people who have passed. They invited any community members who were mourning to stand as they read the prayer.
SAME leaders Arman Anoshiravani ’26 and Ella Mogannam ’26 also spoke, thanking JSU leaders for their collaboration in planning the day’s event and acknowledging the larger scope of what the commemoration recognized: “We are gathering today to remember the events that took place on October 7, but also the decades of tragedy preceding October 7, 2023, and the devastation and suffering that continues to be felt by both sides of the conflict.”
Next, JSU members Sonia Glass ’27 and Gilana Frank ’27 shared a poem authored by Glass that honored the lives of two child hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 and later killed–Ariel and Kfir Bibas, four years old and nine months old, respectively. Glass’s poem explored the loss felt on October 7 as well as the deep injustice of young lives being taken. Of the 251 hostages taken on October 7, 36 to 40 were children.
Imane Moosa ’28 and Mei Chung ’28, both SAME members, also shared poems. Moosa read a poem by Palestinian poet Hanan Mikha’il Ashrawi titled, “From the Diary of an Almost-Four-Year-Old,” written in 1988. The poem juxtaposed childlike innocence with the brutal horrors of war, spotlighting a child suffering from losing her eye. According to UNICEF and the Gaza Health Ministry, over 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or injured by Israeli military operations since October 7. Chung read an excerpt from one of Persian poet Rumi’s books, a passage about unity and oneness in the face of struggle.
While programming for the day focused on unity and reflection, SAME will also be hosting a fundraiser for Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), with the goal of raising $15,000 through donations from LWHS families. Mogannam hopes it will be a “kind of a year-long reminder, in a way, that this is an ongoing issue.”
In October 2023, after the attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, LWHS held a community meeting to recognize the war and students’ connections to it. Programming emphasized the need for students to have a space to process and discuss their reactions, with designated spaces for JSU and SAME affinity groups.
Programming in 2024 was largely similar to the previous year, with students with connections to the war sharing prayers and messages during a community meeting. Students also planted an olive tree in the garden, an active symbol of this endeavour for unity.
This year, students started planning the commemoration earlier than in previous years, as leaders of SAME and JSU wanted to make sure that the day was given the recognition it deserved. Student Council, SAME, JSU and LWHS administration worked together to ensure that this year’s programming met the needs of all students.
In a marked difference from previous years, planning for October 7, 2025 was significantly both student-originated and led. “I think it was amazing that they were just like, we’re gonna come to [Matthew and JR’s] offices and we’re gonna talk about this thing and figure out a way to make a plan that really holds all of those threads of grief, loss, difficulty, complexity, frustration…but also reconciliation, unity, belonging, reflection, [and] dialogue,” Oakland said.
“I appreciate an institution where that can happen,” he added. “Students come to us.”
Téa Theodosopoulos ’25, co-president of LWHS’s student council, helped to facilitate Student Council’s role as a mediator and advocate for student needs. “I kind of sensed there was a disconnect between the administration and the students…not intentional in any way, just that they were unaware of each other’s plans, in the sense, for the day,” she said. “So I’m really trying to bridge that.”
LWHS’s recognition of the attacks aspired to exist in a depoliticized sphere. However, October 2025 features a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation in Palestine—an issue that many believe also demands attention.
“I think that balancing those [current day issues and reflection on the past] is complicated,” Mogannam said. “It’s definitely something we kind of have to tread lightly with. I think there’s, kind of, worries around offending others when you kind of confront something that includes multiple perspectives, multiple identities…and it’s very nuanced.”
While October 2023 marked a larger introduction of the conflict into the conscience of the media and general public, it is far from its origin. The beginning of this conflict is incredibly nuanced–it can be traced even farther back than the creation of the state of Israel itself. Conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, both military and non-military, have also been commonplace since the founding of Israel.
Through the two years since October 7, humanitarian organizations like the PCRF and the United Nations have reported that, for Palestinians, food, water, housing and electricity are extremely difficult—and for some, impossible—to access.
On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, intensifying already strong international uproar over the war.
On October 10, a ceasefire deal and peace plan facilitated by President Donald Trump between Israel and Hamas went into effect, spurring the exchange of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages for almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees, but the agreement has been infringed upon by both parties, with Israel threatening to restrict aid to Gaza and Hamas failing to hand over the bodies of some of the deceased hostages. President Trump has also stated that, if the deal falls through, Israeli forces are allowed continue operations in the region.
And although the war has reached a tentative ceasefire, its two years have heavily devastated the Middle East and have been felt around the world—including within the LWHS community.
However, despite international tensions, student organizers’ vision is still one that overcomes division. “For me, at least, the goal of the day is really to prioritize support and humanity and, kind of, bonding over our shared grief, even if it’s not exactly the same,” Susal said.
“It can be a difficult day for some people, and [students should] just be aware that you’re part of a community that has a ton of different people in it, that’s sometimes gonna be a hard thing, but ultimately, I think it’s really beautiful,” Anoshiravani said. “The way that we can come together on such a difficult day, despite what it represents, is super important.”
