Rami rides his motorcycle through the West Bank, noticing his watch and the cycle clock show different times.

Abir, Bassam's ten-year-old daughter, is struck by a rubber bullet in the back of the head while walking to buy candy.

Bassam cradles Abir's injured head in a vehicle stuck in traffic, unable to reach the hospital through a closed checkpoint.

A seventeen-year-old Bassam is arrested by Israeli authorities and sentenced to seven years in prison in Hebron.

Bassam forms a friendship with prison guard Hertzl Shaul, passing him poems written on water bottle labels to take home.

Rami's son Elik attends a Combatants for Peace meeting and speaks about his sister Smadar, killed by a suicide bomber.

Bassam travels to England to study the Holocaust and concludes the Occupation, not the Jewish people, is the common enemy.

Rami hears a suicide bombing on the radio while driving and calls his wife, who confirms Smadar went downtown.

Rami and Nurit push through the cordoned bombing scene and find Smadar's body lying on a medical tray.

Rami's rage at Palestinians dissolves into the question of whether killing anyone could possibly bring his daughter back.

Rami joins the Parents Circle and is overwhelmed seeing a Palestinian mother holding a photo of her dead daughter: the same grief.

Invited by his son, Rami attends his first Combatants for Peace meeting at the Everest Hotel and unknowingly begins smoking Bassam's cigarettes.

After returning from England, Bassam is visited by Rami; the two share food and walk together to the playground dedicated to Abir.

Bassam pays for an autopsy out of pocket against doctor warnings and takes the state to civil court over Abir's killing.

Bassam texts Rami 'Home, brother' after they part; Bassam goes outside to water his garden as the novel closes.

Apeirogon tells the true story of Israeli Rami Elhanan and Palestinian Bassam Aramin, two fathers whose daughters were killed by the opposing side's forces. Rami's daughter Smadar was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber, while Bassam's daughter Abir was shot by an Israeli rubber bullet a decade later. Both men pass through grief—and in Rami's case, initial violent rage—before finding their way toward peace advocacy. They meet through the Combatants for Peace group, which Rami's own son invites him to attend, and their bond deepens over shared loss and shared purpose. Together they travel the world lecturing on grief, forgiveness, and the necessity of ending the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Their enduring partnership, built on the ruins of two young lives, forms the beating heart of the novel.

The core friendship between Rami and Bassam, forged through the deaths of their daughters.

Border police, claiming to face mortal danger from stone-throwers, fire a rubber bullet from a Jeep; the soldier is eighteen years old.

The CT scan machine at the local hospital has been broken for a month; Abir's ambulance transfer is delayed for over two hours.

Abir is kept alive for two and a half days before dying; false media reports claim she was hit by a thrown rock.

Prison guards strip Bassam naked to beat him; Hertzl throws himself over Bassam to stop a baton blow and is punished by fellow guards.

After the Yom Kippur War, Rami becomes a graphic designer, meets Nurit—daughter of General Matti Peled—and marries her.

The suicide bombing kills Smadar and seven others; body parts are strewn across the street, and a bystander spots a stray eyeball.

Smadar's funeral draws a large crowd because her grandfather Matti Peled was a celebrated soldier turned peace advocate.

After his prison release, Bassam courts Salwa over Fanta and homemade food at her parents' home and they marry within a month.

Youssef Shouli is wrongfully arrested for collecting discarded protest materials for an art project and is radicalized during his four-year sentence.

Bassam visits Belfast to give a peace lecture, receives a standing ovation, and feels more genuinely heard abroad than at home.

Rami views documentary footage of Youssef Shouli's parents—the family of the bomber who likely killed Smadar—speaking calmly into the camera.

At Abir's court case, the border commander argues that ambulances were routinely used as covert terrorist transport during the Second Intifada.

A tearful man approaches Bassam after a lecture, revealing he was the ambulance driver that day, and later donates to the Parents Circle.

Smadar's and Abir's siblings give speeches alongside their fathers on the lecture stage; the fathers embrace their children when they finish.

Nurit smashes the memorial bowl Netanyahu sent and mails it back with a note: 'Dearest Bibi, something is broken.'

This pool follows significant secondary events that expand the central tragedy of two fathers losing their daughters. It traces the mechanics and immediate aftermath of both deaths, from the teenage soldier who fired the fatal rubber bullet to the suicide bombing that scattered victims across a Jerusalem street. Personal histories shape both families—Rami's marriage into the prominent Peled family and Bassam's courtship of Salwa just weeks after leaving prison. The political and legal consequences of the daughters' deaths run throughout, from a commander's cynical courtroom testimony to a prime minister's co-optation of Smadar's memory. Both fathers eventually carry their message to audiences around the world, while families on both sides navigate grief, bureaucracy, and ongoing injustice with quiet endurance.

The surrounding details, consequences, and wider context of both daughters' deaths.

Prison guard Hertzl Shaul comes to the hospital and stands beside Bassam while doctors work on Abir, honoring their bond.

Doctors ask Bassam and his wife whether they will donate Abir's organs; they refuse to allow the donation.

Rami drives an army supply truck during the Yom Kippur War, hauling ammunition into battle and carrying dead soldiers out.

Bassam is detained at gunpoint after pink residue from Abir's candy bracelet on his hands is mistaken by police for Semtex traces.

Bassam leans toward Senator Kerry in a Boston meeting and says: 'I'm sorry to tell you this, Senator, but you murdered my daughter.'

Philippe Petit performs a high-wire act across Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley; Rami watches from the crowd with a young Smadar on his shoulders.

Matti Peled, architect of the Six-Day War, reverses his ideology, begins teaching Palestinian poetry, and endures death threats from fellow Israelis.

Bassam's son Araab is caught throwing stones at school; Bassam makes him swear on the Qur'an never to join a riot again.

Rami delivers his central autobiographical speech, tracing his path from finding Smadar's body to committing to global peace advocacy.

Bassam delivers his parallel speech, recounting his Palestinian pride, his years in prison, and his decision to fight the Occupation nonviolently.

During the Yom Kippur War, Rami picks up a fallen enemy's Kalashnikov after his own gun malfunctions and uses it to kill a soldier.

Prime Minister Netanyahu calls Nurit to offer condolences after the bombing; she tells him he is not permitted to come pay his respects.

The judge overseeing Abir's civil case orders a full reenactment of the shooting and unexpectedly rules in Bassam's favor.

Bassam is stopped at a checkpoint and forced to strip naked for a search just twelve days after Abir's death.

Bassam persuades a deeply reluctant Rami to travel through Germany together for their lecture circuit, and Rami finds something unexpected there.

This pool traces the key turning points that shaped Rami and Bassam into the voices for peace they become. It opens with Hertzl Shaul's act of loyalty at the hospital, moves through Bassam's refusal to donate Abir's organs and his later detention over a candy bracelet's residue, and captures the moment Bassam confronts a US senator directly with his daughter's death. Rami's own arc runs from driving army trucks across a war zone to picking up an enemy's gun and killing a soldier—acts of violence he must reconcile with the peace he later preaches. At the novel's structural center, both men deliver their defining speeches, each tracing the same path from personal catastrophe to global purpose. The pool closes with a legal victory for Bassam and the two men's symbolic journey to Germany, where Rami finally faces a country freighted with the deepest grief of his people.

The pivotal decisions and revelations that transformed both men into peace advocates.