The truce between Israel and Hamas opens an unexpected glimmer. But while some young people parade with banners celebrating 7 October as ‘Palestinian resistance’, others carry opposite signs: in Rondine Palestinian and Israeli flags tied together, in Assisi the march for peace. A reflection by the writer, a Catholic, a centre-left voter and heir to the memory of a father deported to Torgau and Dachau.

Truce and the duty of remembrance

The truce just signed between Israel and Hamas – fragile, temporary, yet unexpected – gives us an hour of respite that we must know how to interpret as a warning and an opportunity. We can no longer accept that the language of conflict, of the recursiveness of hatred, continues to take over even within our communities, among our young people, in the symbols we choose to display.

Yet, in these very days, we have seen the opposite: young activists, intellectuals and trade unionists who go so far as to define Israel an ‘abusive state‘, to present 7 October not as a commemoration of the Hamas massacre but as ‘resistance day‘, to chant chants such as ‘whoever does not jump is an Israeli’, to raise well-packaged banners celebrating violence. In Tuscany, even hang gliders in flight greeted by applause as a symbol of 7 October. All this is a blow to the dignity of history and the collective conscience.

The Bright Signs of Youth

But youth is not all there is. There are, at the same time, extraordinary signs of hope.
The first is the community of Rondine, near Arezzo, with its ‘Citadel of Peace’ project. There, students from countries in conflict live together and practise the Rondine method: learning to humanise the opponent. At the recent YouTopic Fest (6-7-8 June 2025), the “On the way for peace” march from Arezzo to Rondine showed a symbol that has nothing to do with hate chants: Palestinian and Israeli flags tied together. A simple but powerful gesture.

The second sign is the Perugia-Assisi Peace March, taking place today Sunday 12 October 2025: departure from Perugia (Giardini del Frontone, 9:00 a.m.), arrival in Assisi (Rocca Maggiore, 3:00 p.m.), after 24 kilometres of walking. Since 1961, this march has attracted thousands of people of all ages, faiths and political affiliations. It is the living memory of an Italy capable of uniting for nonviolence, not hatred.

Three times involved

The writer feels three times involved. As a Catholic, I listen to the voice of those who, like Cardinal Parolin, had the courage to say that 7 October was as inhuman as the carnage in Gaza. As a centre-left voter, who as a young man militated in the Federation of Young Italian Communists, I feel pain to see how a part of the left has lost the moral compass of language. And as the son of a deportee to Torgau and Dachau, I know that one cannot remain silent when memory is distorted, distorted, trampled upon.

True Resistance

Shame on those who soil the memory of the anti-fascist Resistance by linking it to Hamas and 7 October.
The real Resistance was also made up of Jewish men and women: Leone Ginzburg, Jewish critic and founder of Giustizia e Libertà, tortured to death in fascist prisons; Primo Levi, survivor of Auschwitz and universal voice of the Shoah; Eugenio Curiel, Jewish physicist and partisan leader, assassinated in 1945; Umberto Terracini, Jewish anti-fascist, partisan and President of the Constituent Assembly.

Alongside them were non-Jewish men, such as Piero Calamandrei, father of the Constitution, and Ferruccio Parri, commander of the CLN. They fought together, in the name of a common cause. To liken Hamas to that Resistance is to insult them as much as the others, it is to betray the moral heritage on which the Republic was founded.

A necessary mea culpa

This is why I invite certain leftists to do mea culpa. It is not enough to get indignant over a few banners: we need to ask ourselves about the cultural and ideological roots that have allowed some of our young people to believe that Hamas can be likened to the Resistance. It is our responsibility, as adults and as intellectuals, if memory has been left undefended.

I ask the ANPI, the National Association of Italian Partisans, to intervene firmly. The ANPI cherishes the memory of those who truly fought for freedom and paid with their lives or with deportation. It has a duty to admonish these young people and remind them that the word Resistance cannot be bent to justify terrorism.

Truce and promise

Today’s truce shows that even the impossible can become reality. The young people of Rondine and the pilgrims of the Perugia-Assisi March remind us that peace is not a utopia but a path, made of simple gestures and true words. Precisely for this reason, we have a duty to protect historical memory from lies and to teach that peace is born from truth, not manipulation.
Memory cannot be erased. Peace is not born of hatred.