Even during peacetime, armed guards stand outside some of the restaurants and coffee shops throughout Israel.

According to Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer of Congregation B'nai Abraham, visitors would be wise to enter a shop with a guard outside rather than a place without one.

“Restaurants and businesses employ security guards,” she said. “That's the way Israelis live in peace times. There has been conflict there for a long time.”

Gray-Schaffer visited Israel in 2017, and said she recognizes places that have been destroyed in the recent attacks by Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist organization Hamas, which she has seen in photographs. She said the attacks have affected Jewish institutions in the United States.

“My congregants have reached out to me, but there is also the question of security,” Gray-Schaffer said. “Jewish institutions across the country are increasing their security.”

Eric Tuten is an assistant professor of history at Slippery Rock University, who specializes in modern Middle East history, with an emphasis on the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He also teaches courses in Jewish and world history and Holocaust/genocide studies.

According to Tuten, Israel is a country of two main ideologies that stem from the two main cultures occupying the nation.

“Its official languages are Hebrew and Arabic; some communities, you really are talking like two different worlds there,” Tuten said. “You have some Palestinian Arabs who actually live in Israel. Some Palestinians chose to stay in that area and become citizens in Israel.”

Tuten said Hamas formed in 1987, with a mission to take back land from Israel and claim it for Palestinians. Aside from its political agenda, Tuten said, Hamas has also taken a place in Israeli culture for providing education and medication to Palestinian people since its formation.

The organization occupied Gaza in 2007, and subsequently sent a few missiles to Israel.

The attack that began Oct. 7, according to Tuten, came as a surprise to Israel, which is in part why it has been so devastating.

“It has really thrown Israel for a curve,” he said. “(Citizens) have criticized the government and intelligence for not seeing this was going to happen.”

Tuten added that while the conflict has roots in the land, which is important to Arabs and Jews for religious reasons, the cause for the war is more political in nature.

“This conflict really has been based more on a competition between two nationalist movements, Palestinians and Jewish,” he said. “The origins are more political, and more over control of land. The idea that it goes back hundreds of years isn't true — it's more of a modern phenomenon.”

Tuten said many Jewish people in Israel and Palestinians disagree on the steps to take to stop the military conflict. Additionally, Palestinians do have legal claim to some parts of land being fought over.

“Jews are divided amongst themselves on a peace agreement, and if they want to give up land to the Palestinians,” Tuten said. “(Palestinians) did purchase areas of land in Israel. There were legal transactions that took place that led to an exchange of land.”

Gray-Schaffer said that while Jerusalem is important to the Jewish faith, she understands it is significant to Muslims as well.

“Underlying all this is the fact that different Abrahamic religions consider places in Israel as some of their holiest of places,” Gray-Schaffer said. “Muslims and Jews, one of the holiest places is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.”

According to Tuten, the number of Israeli Jews killed since Oct. 7 is the largest number of Jews lost in any war fought between Israel and its neighbors. He said the effect of the conflict may not immediately or directly affect U.S. people or policy.

“So far, the U.S. has shown solid support of Israel in condemning violence by Hamas,” Tuten said. “Our support will be military, political support, emotional support. I don't think it's going to have much of an impact directly on Americans.”

Tuten said he lived in Israel in 2005 and 2006, and visited as recently as last year. He said that throughout the past 20 or more years, Hamas has agreed to hudna, or a cease-fire, with Jewish government, but has not agreed to stop military mobilization.

Because members of Hamas want to create a Palestinian nation in Israel, their end goal would be to own and occupy land that currently is part of Israel. Tuten said the conflict will have to be addressed politically to achieve hudna.

“A lot of factors are working against the possibility of a peace agreement,” Tuten said. “Israel is going to have to negotiate with Hamas. Because of the Hamas charter and its goal to destroy Israel, the closest thing the Hamas would give is a cease-fire.”

Although Hamas and the Israeli government are at odds over land, Tuten said a compromise could be made between both parties, even though chances are slim.

“I am a supporter of a two-state solution. I would like to see a state created where Palestinians can call home,” Tuten said. “The possibility is diminishing … There are settlers in the areas that could potentially become a Palestinian state.”

Gray-Schaffer said that no matter what the fighting is about, she and her congregation have prayed for the violence to end.

“It's heartbreaking; it's unfathomable, the acts of atrocity,” Gray-Schaffer said. “It's really sad that human beings can do that to one another.”