An observant Jew, Pletnyov moved with his wife and five children to Ashkelon, just miles from the Gaza Strip, in the hopes of building a new life. But when Hamas militants from Gaza launched their attacks last month, a new war forced him to take flight for a third time, now to a camp for Jewish refugees in rural Hungary.

“Coming here for me and for my wife is such unimaginable relief,” said Pletnyov, whose apartment building in Ashkelon was hit by a Hamas rocket as the attacks began. “It’s a comforting place to be.”

The 34-year-old and his family are now living in a state-owned resort, disused for nearly two decades, on the shores of the sprawling Lake Balaton in western Hungary.

First opened for Jewish Ukrainian refugees following Russia’s invasion last year, it is now housing around 250 people including some 100 children, most of whom have arrived from Israel in the weeks since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

The camp is equipped with detached housing units and a central building where three kosher meals are served per day. The residents are provided with shelter and camaraderie, and can also engage in activities like sports and dancing, and may attend yeshiva for religious studies.

“We make sure people are eating well, make sure they’re healthy, psychologically healthy, mentally healthy,” said Mendel Moscowitz, the rabbi of the camp, adding that the facility is open to all Jews, whether they be Orthodox, secular or non-observing.

“They find their place here because we all share that we’re Jewish and we all share the refugee status that also brings everybody together,” he said.

Eva Kopolovich, 50, a psychotherapist from Shlomi on Israel’s Lebanese border, was one of around 160,000 people evacuated from their homes in the north and south by Israeli Defense Forces after the Hamas attacks began. Born in Hungary where she spent the first four years of her life, she fled with her parents and 11-year-old son to Budapest before making their way to the camp.

Two weeks after arriving at the lakeside refuge, Kopolovich said she has taken comfort in being among other Jews who have shared her experiences in being uprooted from their lives.

“We are in the same boat so we understand each other (regarding) stuff that people who are not in our position can never understand,” she said. “All of us went through a lot of stuff. I’m not even talking about the Ukrainians, who went from one war to another to another.”

Indeed, many current residents of the camp arrived there after having earlier fled to Israel from Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s war. Moscowitz, the rabbi, left his hometown of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

He said his prior experiences of being displaced have helped him to better serve those who have sought refuge in the camp.

“I know their needs, I feel their needs. I know what it’s like to run away from war,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re having to experience a second war for our families. And thank God, thank God that there is a place where we could go to.”

Slomo Koves, the chief rabbi for the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities, said that more than 3,000 people have resided in the camp since the war in Ukraine began nearly 21 months ago.

While he said he is “proud” of Hungary for providing a place of refuge for Jews who have been forced from their homes, the very need to do so has been hard to digest.

“It’s a very sad situation that it has become a famous Jewish refugee camp,” he said. “I would never have thought that such a thing would be needed in 21st-century Europe.”

While some families that have stayed at the camp have already returned to Israel, many plan to stay for the next few months while waiting for the war to come to an end, Moscowitz said.

“We’re hopeful that there will be peace in Ukraine and Israel and the world,” he said. “People want to live. People want to live in peace. Nobody’s interested in war.”

The manuscript, part of a collection of 27 rare manuscripts on display, is being showcased at the fair’s special pavilion.

These valuable manuscripts are the property of the King Abdulaziz Complex for Endowment Libraries, the King Salman Library at the King Saud University, and the King Fahd National Library.

The Riyadh International Book Fair, an annual event, opened its doors to the public on Thursday. It has attracted around 1,800 publishing houses and cultural organizations from all over the world and is expected to welcome approximately one million visitors.

Oman has been designated as the guest of honor for this year’s fair, which will run until October 7. Spanning over 46,000 square meters, the event is the largest in the Arab world in terms of cultural diversity and activities designed for all age groups.

Activities include symposiums, poetry recitals, workshops, children’s events, stage performances, concerts, and the “Book Talk,” where influential thinkers and authors gather.

In a new addition, the fair has organized a poetry recitation competition for children, aimed at enhancing their linguistic, poetic, and personal skills.

Simultaneously, an international conference for publishers is scheduled for October 4, featuring prominent local and foreign speakers discussing various aspects of the publishing industry.

Last year’s edition of the fair involved 1,200 publishing houses from 32 countries. After being postponed in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the fair resumed in October 2021, continuing to be a vital platform for literary exchange and cultural engagement.

According to Emirates News Agency (WAM), UAE authorities facilitated the travel of family members from Yemen to Emirates, which the family members refer to as “nothing short of a miracle and the realization of an impossible dream”.

“We thank the UAE for their great support in arranging the reunion. This is an example of the UAE’s humanitarian approach, as well as of its noble values of tolerance and coexistence,” one of the Jewish family members said.

“I never imagined seeing them again. I never imagined hugging them”, said a female family member while tears in her eyes.

The old father of the Jewish family said after seeing his children after years of separation, “I feel as if I were reborn today. I am so happy to have met all my children and grandchildren. I am also overjoyed to be in the UAE, the land of tolerance, coexistence and goodness”.

“Sincere thanks to UAE for giving us this opportunity. May Allah bless them, they’ve given us everything we needed. They made it easy for us all. Alhamdulillah, we are all fine, my family and I are fine”, said the Jewish old man.

There are those within the Israeli authorities who are happy to turn a blind eye to Jewish terrorism against Palestinians.

Watching footage this week of the settlers of Yitzhar, a small community in the heart of the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank, throwing stones at the Israeli security forces, who are supposed to be there to protect them, reminded me of a story from a visit to a rabbinical seminar in a nearby settlement a number of years ago. There I met with the seminar’s leader and sought his views on relations with Palestinians and the future of this conflict-riven place.

I sort of expected an outpouring of criticism of the Palestinians for posing a security threat to them, and for him to scold the Israeli government for not doing enough to protect them or support the expansion of the Jewish presence in the West Bank, plus of course the usual diatribe against the left and the media for hating them. Instead, to my surprise, my host expressed views that worried me even more. He didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest by the environment around him. He declared that his main concern was to educate as many scholars of the Torah as possible and strengthen their belief in the Jewish creed. For a brief moment, he struck me as an innocent, almost naive person, but this was not the case. Behind this soft-speaking rabbi’s sweet talk lay a dangerous defiance of the law of the land in favor of divine law, and of the way he and his disciples chose to interpret Jewish scripture.

If, by any standard of international law, the entire settlement project, with its 600,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, is illegal, there are also outposts that have been built in defiance of both Israeli law and the Israeli government, and rogue elements that respect neither Israeli law nor the Palestinian Authority and are increasingly undeterred by Israel’s security forces. It is a small minority for sure, but a vocal one that sees itself as above the law in its adherence to a most extreme interpretation of Judaism and Zionism. According to their twisted view, Jews are the masters of the land and the Palestinians who have lived on the land of their ancestors for so many generations are merely tolerated residents.

Accordingly, the punitive nature of the occupation itself is not enough to force Palestinians to leave their land, and what is necessary is intimidation through acts of terrorism. Such premeditated violence aims to instill fear and drive Palestinians from their land, enabling the expansion of Israeli control throughout the Occupied Territories.

One of Israel’s most prominent human rights organizations, Yesh Din, has devoted an entire report to the violent behavior of the residents of Yitzhar. According to this account, “settlers and other Israeli civilians, arriving from the settlement of Yitzhar, its satellite outposts and the outpost of Giv’at Ronen, caused bodily harm or property damage to residents of six villages.” The incidents described in the report took place inside homes, on village streets and on the surrounding farmland. For instance, graffiti that read, “Here live enemies — expel or kill” was daubed on the walls of a house in the Palestinian village of Urif. Such vile messages are used as a form of intimidation against ordinary Palestinians. Their content is obviously a source of fear, but it also lets them know that settlers can come right up to their homes whenever they choose and with impunity, which must be a terrifying realization. What if, instead of cans of paint, settlers were to turn the assault rifles they carry, with license from the Israeli authorities, against these residents?

The behavior of these Jewish settlers should worry all law-abiding Israeli citizens who still believe that, at some future point, Israelis and Palestinians must reach a political agreement that will lead to peaceful coexistence, and that the law of the country should rule supreme. Instead, there are those within the Israeli authorities who are happy to turn a blind eye to Jewish terrorism against Palestinians, and who even sympathize with it and criminally neglect their moral and legal duty to stop it and bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes, which they are failing to avert.

Those settlers who are disregarding both international and Israeli law have friends and sympathizers at almost all levels of the establishment, including government ministers and legislators, who are ready and happy to advocate for them. These are the very same politicians that call for the full weight of the law to be applied against Palestinian, including the demolition of their innocent families’ homes, whenever Jews are attacked, but see settlers’ acts of terrorism as acceptable and even lobby for perpetrators to be spared lengthy prison sentences, or even from having to face justice at all.

And, in the meantime, Palestinians are on the receiving end of hundreds of suspected offenses committed by Israeli civilians against residents of the Palestinian villages. Under the slogan “price tag,” settlers are torching Palestinian property, cutting down trees, destroying crops, slaughtering livestock, and blocking access to the farmland that is the main source of so many Palestinians’ livelihoods.

The entire settlement movement has been aimed at perpetuating the occupation of the West Bank, and also initially Gaza, leading to the annexation of at least part of these lands by Israel. By enabling and facilitating this illegal activity, the Israeli government has also created the monster of ultranationalist religious fanatics determined to make the lives of Palestinians a misery as part of their “grand plan” to take all the land for themselves and in so doing fulfill their distorted view of “the promised land to the chosen people.” It is for the law enforcement bodies in Israel to stop treating these fanatics with velvet gloves and ambiguity. These settlers are not only criminally terrorizing Palestinians, but simultaneously undermining the authority and credibility of Israel’s government, its democracy and its rule of law.

Article first published in Arab News.

Yossi Mekelberg is Professor of International Relations and Faculty Lead on Outright projects at Regent’s University London. He tweets under @YMekelberg

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect The Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.