Published: 17 October 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
RAMI AMAN has been tortured by Hamas for his activism. He speaks to BEN LYNFIELD about friends killed, hostages and the Hamas mindset.
For Rami Aman, exiled leader of a small and suppressed group of Gaza Strip peace activists, the war that began with Hamas’s invasion of Israeli border communities on October 7 is especially wrenching, harrowing and complicated.
Palestinian colleagues who support peace have been killed or hard hit, Aman says, while a friend of Aman’s, Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, 74, a veteran supporter of assistance to Gaza civilians, has been missing since the attack. She is believed to be among the more than a hundred people taken hostage by Hamas on the most devastating and deadly day in Israeli history.
On that day, Hamas conquered border communities and carried out multiple massacres and atrocities, including at Silver’s kibbutz, Be’eri. Silver, who also holds Canadian citizenship, is an unlikely enemy of Palestinians, having served on the board of the Israeli human rights group B’tselem and, as Aman recalls, has been instrumental in ferrying Gazans from the Erez crossing to hospitals in Israel.
Israel has hit back with pulverising aerial bombardments, inflicting massive civilian death tolls on entire neighbourhoods.
Aman, now living in Cairo, where he eventually took refuge after being freed from Hamas torture and three months imprisonment three years ago, is immersed in the agony of the war. He was jailed in 2020 by Hamas for organising Zoom meetings and other virtual activities with Israelis across the border.
In a phone interview with The Jewish Independent, Aman focused much of his criticism on Israel for what he said was blanket bombing that did not make distinctions. “It’s very terrible. Israel is not fighting Hamas, it is fighting everything, it’s targeting everyone,” he said on Thursday.
He predicts Hamas will release prisoners 'in order to show the world it is not Islamic State'
At least eight Gazan friends of Aman, who he says opposed Hamas and supported peace, have died as a result of the Israeli bombardments, he said. His home neighbourhood of Rimal, in Gaza City, has been virtually flattened, according to Israeli media reports. “Rimal is mostly original Gazans, not refugees. It has a lot of businessmen from the private sector who do not support Hamas or Fatah.”
One of his best friends, Yihya Khatib, an English teacher whom he described as “an open-minded and liberated thinker”, was killed in his home in an Israeli strike, he added.
Other cohorts have been harmed one way or another, Aman said. Without mentioning their last names, he pointed to two people well known to the Israeli side of the dialogue efforts who have been devastated: Nivin, who lived in Gaza City’s Shajaiya neighbourhood, whose home was destroyed ,and Alael, from the Shati Refugee camp, who lost half of his home.
“The Israeli army’s attitude is that it can kill anyone. It is pushing Egypt to take all the Gazans. But the Hamas fighters are not in these buildings. My family and other families living in the houses are dying now,” Aman said.
“We have many pictures of Palestinian babies and women killed now,” he added. “I’m not comparing because it is wrong to kill any Jew, Christian or Muslim.
“I condemn the killing of any Christian, Muslim, Jew, non-religious, anyone. I am a human.”
He seemed shaken that Silver was taken hostage. “Vivian is my friend. I’ve known her for five years. When I organise initiatives for donations, she’s the first on my list.”
He does not think Hamas will kill captured peace activist Vivian Silver, whose work has been internationally recognised.
He does not think Hamas would kill Silver, whose work for peace has been internationally recognised. “I believe Vivian will use her power to speak. She will not keep silent. She did many things for Gazans. She guided hundreds of people to hospital in Israel. She helped people pay for university and for food.”
“If they check her phone, they will find the many things she did to support Gaza. Vivian didn’t kill any Palestinian so who will hurt her?” he asked.
“I hope Vivian mentioned my name to those who are holding her. In fact, when I was being held, I told my interrogators that there are some Israelis who are better than Palestinians and want to talk to Hamas.”
Aman said he expects Hamas to release all the hostages. “First kids and women, then civilians, then soldiers.” But, he stressed, in exchange they want an Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners and “recognition that Hamas is the big power in Palestine”.
He predicts Hamas will release prisoners “in order to show the world it is not Da’esh (Islamic state)”.
Aman takes issue with the view that Hamas is the same as Da’esh and although he criticises Hamas, he does not believe that Hamas killed babies during its invasion.
“Hamas is not Daesh. When I was in prison, Hamas tortured Daesh prisoners in front of my eyes.”
But he does say he was surprised by its “attitude” towards Israeli civilians. He thought such violations could only be conducted against Fatah, with whom Hamas fought a brief war for control of Gaza in 2006 that was punctuated by Hamas atrocities.
“I was surprised by their attitude to dead bodies and to people. It is something bad and it surprised me. There is no need to torture a woman. I am surprised by this attitude. Maybe I thought they could do this to Fatah but not to Israel. But this gives Israel an excuse to destroy Gaza.
"I was surprised by their attitude to dead bodies and to people. It is something bad and it surprised me."
Rami Aman
“I saw torture and kidnapping and I am against that. It’s believable but some things are unbelievable. There is no need to promote to the world that we are Da’esh.”
The Hamas invasion itself did not surprise Aman because, he said, many Hamas leaders in recent years have spoken about invading Israel. “I think Hamas succeeded in building relations with someone in the Israeli army to help them with this,” he asserted. “Otherwise, no one would be able to cross.”
Aman has little patience for people who ask him if he condemns Hamas. “I organised hundreds of [virtual] meetings, not so people can ask me if I condemn but so we can come closer,” he said. Since 2015, Aman’s group of activists, known as the Gaza Youth Committee, held regular video chats with Israeli counterparts under the heading “Skype with Your Enemy”. In 2019, it organised a cycling event in which Israelis and Gazans rode in parallel on opposite sides of the border fence.
But when Aman organised a massive virtual link up with Israelis that drew over 200 participants a year later, word spread and it touched off an uproar in Gaza. Hamas arrested him, tortured him and charged him with “weakening the revolutionary spirit.” For 18 days he was forced to sit blindfolded on a tiny chair from 6am to 1pm, he told Associated Press.
Aman stressed he has been through Israeli wars with Hamas since 2008. But now, in this costliest war, rather than being in the Strip he is in Cairo, working the phones “to see how we can find safe places, food and water” for those trapped inside the coastal enclave.
He is also in touch with Israeli peace activists. “We have no choice except to keep talking,” he says. “With this killing, people on both sides want revenge. The killing won’t help.”
Photo: Rami Aman
