Two Families Under the Gun

When Orly Simon and her husband Yoav look out from Gilo, their neighborhood on the southern edge of Jerusalem, across a valley they can just make out where Jacqueline Zeidan and her husband Fayez used to live in Beit Jala. The families have much in common. Each has young daughters, two for the Simons, three for the Zeidans, all very cute. Both wives are pregnant. But more than a valley separates them. The Simons are Israelis; the Zeidans are Palestinians. Throughout the intifadeh, Palestinian gunmen from Beit Jala have periodically shot at and shelled Gilo. Israeli forces have retaliated by shelling...