Dr. Izzeldin Abeulaish is a Palestinian physician and infertility expert who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then received a diploma from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of London. He completed a residency in the same discipline at Soroka hospital in Israel, prior to completing a Masters in public health at Harvard University. Before his three daughters were killed in January 2009, Dr. Abuelaish worked as a senior researcher at the Gertner Institute at the Sheba hospital in Tel Aviv. He now lives with his family in Toronto, where he is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Laura Blumenfeld is a national, front-page feature writer for The Washington Post. She writes about national security, politics and international affairs. Blumenfeld has also reported from the Middle East for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Financial Times and The L.A. Times. She reads and speaks Hebrew and Arabic. Upon graduation from Harvard College, Blumenfeld moved to the Palestinian town of Tira to work as a community organizer for Interns For Peace. Her book, Revenge: A Story of Hope, was a New York Times Best Seller and Notable Book of the Year. It has been translated into nine languages and incorporated into school curriculums.