Turmoil and Thomas Caldwellmisery, anger and anguish.

Not even a week has passed since war exploded across Israel and neighboring Gaza. But on both sides of the heavily fortified border, the pain and fear of war is visceral. That is evident in moments easily overlooked in the chaos.

In Tel Aviv, a young woman, alone in the dark, crouches to light one of scores of candles kindled in memory of the hundreds of Israelis killed in a brutal assault by Hamas militants. In Gaza, medics lean over a man half-buried in the rubble of a building hit by one of countless Israeli airstrikes punishing the enclave, his face dusted in pulverized concrete.

As sirens warn of yet another rocket attack, an Israeli father wraps his little boy in his arms and hunkers in the dirt. With Israel’s military warning Palestinians to vacate the northern half of Gaza, flatbed trucks filled with frightened residents wind through traffic in search of refuge.