Cross-border blog promotes Israel-Gaza peace

By Rebecca Harrison

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - "Peace man" is from the Gaza Strip. "Hope man" lives across the Israeli border in Sderot.

Both yearn for an end to violence and have grand dreams of nurturing Palestinian-Israeli friendship and promoting peace.

But since Hamas Islamists seized control of Gaza in June and Israel shut its frontier, the two have been unable to meet, let alone work on plans for a Gaza-Sderot children's summer camp.

So they decided to keep their friendship alive in cyberspace by creating a joint blog in English that explores daily life on both sides of Israel's conflict with Hamas and pushes for an end to the violence.

"We wanted to open our lives and suffering to the world and show this isn't just a political issue, there are real people involved," Hope man, a 42-year-old father of three, told Reuters by telephone.

"We wanted to show there are ordinary people who are looking for alternatives to violence."

Both bloggers keep their identities secret for fear of harassment or perhaps worse in Gaza, where dialogue might be viewed as collaboration. They use the "Peace man" and "Hope man" nicknames on their site, www.gaza-sderot.blogspot.com.

Militants from Gaza regularly launch cross-border rockets which rarely kill Israelis but traumatise towns such as Sderot. Israel frequently raids the Hamas-run enclave and killed some 300 Palestinians there last year, including dozens of civilians.