Love songs of Egyptian diva Umm Kalthoum boom across the Tel Aviv theatre where Arabs and Jews seek solace from the deadly Hamas-Israel fighting raging only miles away.

“On stage, three Jews and three Arabs deliver their lines in Hebrew and sing in Arabic,” said play director Igal Ezraty.

“It is meant to show that Arabic is not just the language of Hamas,” he said.

Arabic “is a beautiful language … and for many Israelis it is the language of their childhood, the one their parents once spoke”, he said.

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