'Never again' Holocaust survivors call for end to Gaza war

Few days speak so profoundly to the soul of Israel than Holocaust Memorial Day.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

As the country sat in silence on Thursday to remember the 6 million Jews exterminated by the Nazis, the same refrain was repeated by many: never again. But for some across Israel, as the war in Gaza continues to ravage the Palestinian people and wipe out entire families, never again had come to hold another meaning.

As the country's most powerful politicians including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attended a ceremony on Thursday morning at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, three Holocaust survivors in their 80s stood at the entrance holding a sign aloft: "If we have lost our compassion for the other, we have lost our humanity."

Some 40 miles away in a square in central Tel Aviv, thousands, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, stood holding up photos of Palestinian children who had been killed since the war began. Dozens more lined the roads of the city dressed in black, holding out empty pots to symbolise the starvation of those in Gaza.