In mid-August, I read a column in an Israeli newspaper by a mother who described putting her children to bed in their home near Gaza, where fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas had been raging since July 8. She explained how she made sure the path to the safe room was clear of toys so that they would be able to get there in the allotted 15 seconds if a siren sounded. I thought of her kids, lying in bed and trying to go to sleep. I had also just gotten back from Gaza, where there are neither sirens nor safe rooms, so I could hardly help thinking about all the toys buried under the rubble. On both sides, another generation is growing up amid violence and fear.

For many around the world, the most recent outbreak of war in Israel and Gaza has seemed like a rerun of a familiar film. The last dismal showing ended 20 months earlier, the one before that in 2009. For those closest to the fighting, it has been an inescapable fact of life for decades; Israel’s history is one of intermittent war with its Arab neighbors from the country’s founding 66 years ago. This summer’s conflict followed a breakdown in American-brokered peace talks that few ever believed would bear fruit. Israelis contend that what started it was the June kidnapping and murder of three teenagers hitchhiking home from their yeshivas in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians point to Israel’s earlier rejection of a reconciliation government that included Hamas, the Islamist movement that dominates Gaza.