Putting my two girls to bed is a daily ritual for me. I lie down in their bed and have one by each side. We read a story, and they play around, tease each other, tease me. Finally, I ask them to go to bed firmly, and they fall asleep in a second.

Recently we had particularly intense weather here in Oslo, with loud thunderstorms disturbing our routine. The girls were scared of the deafening sound that sometimes seemed so close that it even scared me, but I kept it together for them.

As they curled closer to me, I reassured them with the same words my own parents used when I was a child to calm me and my siblings down: that we were safe and that God is the most merciful, so not to worry.

Still, the girls asked a million questions as children often do: Who sends the thunder? Why does God do this to us? Doesn’t God see and hear everything?

As I struggled to answer amid the thunderstorm, I thought about Gaza. At that moment, somewhere in the ruins of a home or in a tent, a Palestinian father was also hugging his two daughters and struggling to answer similar questions.

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