Published: 21 November 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Although Mater is no longer being intimidated by Hamas and has been able to resume work as a civil lawyer, his colleagues have encouraged him to leave the Youth Committee and emigrate from Gaza for his own safety.
Created in 2010, the Youth Committee wants a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and an end to the Israeli siege on Gaza. The group, which has more than 200 members, carries out training in non-violence and has initiated a letter-writing campaign to international activists.
What are the challenges you face as a result of your arrest?
I was arrested and held in unspeakable conditions for 10 days. Concerned for my safety, my family is trying to persuade me to abandon my activities and emigrate from Gaza. No one here has respect for or abides by the laws for human rights, nor do the authorities honour the guidelines of the Geneva Convention when you are detained or arrested.
In addition, I can't meet my girlfriend in public because Hamas only lets women go out in the street if they are accompanied by a family member, and sometimes sends security guards to check, with orders to arrest women, whether they are alone or accompanied by men. So, I don’t want to put her under this kind of pressure.
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MY FAMILY WAS active in the Fatah political party, For the most part, our lives were financially stable. Everything I saw in my childhood, all the values upon which I was raised, were based on the Fatah tenets.
I was lucky that my family didn’t force me to be involved with political issues. But, of course, there are always the expectations and influences of the society and culture in which you live.
I used to go to a private school, aligned with Fatah party policy, with boys and girls learning together. Later, due to behavioural problems, I was transferred to a school run by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), where the genders were segregated. Through the teachers’ stories about Jihadi operations, and conversations with students, we were taught to aspire to become martyrs.
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The streets were a place for playing football, listening to elders, watching demonstrations and seeing posters of detainees and martyrs. Later, when we became adults, we began to go to mosques.
My family encouraged me to go every day. Mosques used to organise trips where we participated in sporting events and received military training. I became less interested in going to mosques because of the discrimination by families of Hamas against those of Fatah.
WE GREW UP with Hamas as the symbol of resistance to the Israelis. They were the ones who never let the Gazans down.
In 2014, I felt happy because the war against Israel gave me an opportunity to take my revenge on the Israelis. I agreed with Jihadi armed operations but did not realise that innocent Israeli civilians would be hurt and killed. I accepted that our people would also get killed because they would become martyrs and go to heaven.
And my private sacred goal was to go to heaven.
Over time, I discovered how harsh and painful the sounds of missiles and scenes of death were when you saw them in person.
When the 2014 war ended, people went out to the streets, celebrating the victory, distributing sweets and shooting into the air. No one mentioned the victims. I lost friends; that was when I learned that war can never be a solution.
One day I had a Facebook call from a friend, a girl from Saudi Arabia with whom I had been in touch for a year. She was running away from her home in that country to escape bombing. She was scared.
I discovered on the internet that the girl wasn't a Sunni Muslim, but a Shia, and was shocked to find that the bombing was targeting an area where Shias lived. I felt sad and concerned for her.
This helped me understand that there is no justification for not interacting with people who are different from me. I promised myself to relate to people based on who they are because we are all basically the same.
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How did you learn about the Youth Committee, and what are the changes you have achieved together?
I was planning to emigrate from Gaza because of the intolerable economic conditions. I changed my mind when I heard a friend talking about his meeting with a leader in Gaza. I asked him why he didn't confront that leader about his attitude towards the people’s suffering.
I wanted an explanation of this senseless division among our people, between Hamas and Fatah, despite the friendly one-on-one relations between them behind closed doors.
“You can ask him yourself,” he said and gave me the phone number of Rami Aman, founder of the Youth Committee. We spoke, he was very positive and told me about an upcoming meeting with another Gazan leader.
This made me realise it was possible to meet more decision-makers, to spread awareness and work on solving problems.
[Through 'Skype with your Enemy', we had the opportunity to look each other in the eye and see we both had faces. None of us had horns. This was the first time we spoke to Israelis directly, without intermediaries infusing commentary or prejudices.
I became a member of the committee and for the first time felt that my voice could be heard by people of influence in the Gaza Strip; the same personalities whom I was used to seeing on TV and hearing on the radio. I even had photos taken with them.
The committee’s goal was to support families whose loved ones had been victims of internal political division, spread the culture of forgiveness and reconciliation, and get them to let go of the urge for revenge. Families expressed their appreciation and saw the logic in our suggestions to build a better future for the next generations.
In 2015, Aman suggested another endeavour, called "Skype with your Enemy"; the idea was to hold video conference meetings between people who consider each other enemies.
The idea came to fruition when seven Gazans Skyped with Israelis for the first time. At that time, I believed we were enemies. However, I felt it was a good idea to discover what this “enemy” looked like. We connected to our phones and internet, we closed the doors and windows in our room. We had to ensure discretion for this to take place.
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We wanted them to know that the people in Gaza loved life, that we hoped for a better future, and that we needed Israeli soldiers to stop using extreme force against us. And we slowly began to see “the other” more accurately, more realistically. The atmosphere relaxed. It became light and friendly.
We had the opportunity to look each other in the eye and see we both had faces. None of us had horns. This was the first time we spoke to Israelis directly, without intermediaries infusing commentary or prejudices.
LATER, THE committee chose me to represent them in a workshop in Jerusalem, and I applied to the authorities for permission to enter Israel. Permission and papers were granted, enabling me to exit Gaza via the Erez Crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip. And so, I was able to participate in the meeting, and talk about the importance of the language of dialogue and basic negotiation skills.
. Thanks to my experiences of “Skyping with my Enemy”, I no longer had reservations or fears of meeting Israelis.
Although my permission to be in Jerusalem was only for a couple of hours, it felt equivalent to years of learning.
Finally, the committee's thoughts and ideas focused on depicting the real lives of Palestinians to the world, without any exaggerations, unlike what sometimes happens when communicated through the mass media. The media focuses on pictures of blood and violence.
The positive side of life in Gaza isn’t “sexy” enough. The media never tells the stories of the majority of Gazans who want to live in peace.
This is how I became a different person. [Despite my arrest and imprisonment] I can now express my thoughts without fearing anyone. My thoughts are formed independently, based on my experiences from speaking and listening to others' stories.
What are your other challenges?
There is an international [Israeli-Egyptian] siege imposed on Gaza; a siege that deprives people of their dreams, hopes and basic human rights to medical care. People in Gaza should have the same rights as other people. They deserve a better life and a better future.
I have never had the opportunity to meet face-to-face any of the friends I’ve met the internet. Some of them live on the other side of the border, only a few kilometres away.
My family put a lot of pressure on me to stop my pro bono work, telling me that I should focus on my own life and how to earn money and make a living.
But being a member of this committee means a lot to me and I believe the knowledge that I have now is much more important than any money could I earn.
I am optimistic and believe this situation will end one day. I can envision progress despite the many obstacles that stand in our way.
