Gaza peace activist’s anguish: ‘Israel is fighting everything’

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.