Trio of Gaza peace activists face jail for friendly video call with Israelis

A screengrab from the Zoom video meeting shows Rami Aman, left, one of the organizers of the event, who was later arrested by Hamas. 

Credit: Picture from the New York Times

Three Palestinian activists in Gaza have been charged with "weakening the revolutionary spirit" and are facing prison sentences after they took part in a friendly video call with Israelis earlier this year. 

The activists, from the Gaza Youth Committee, appeared in a web conference on Zoom called "Skype With Your Enemy," which sought to foster relations between Israelis and Palestinians. 

But Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza strip, took a dim view of the video call and arrested the activists in April. 

The trio could face several years in prison or hard labour as punishment, the New York Times reported, and rights groups have repeatedly called for the activists to be released.  

It came as the Hamas and Fatah political factions agreed to hold elections in Gaza and the West Bank for the first time since 2006,  united in their anger towards Israel’s normalisation deals with Gulf states. 

The vote will be held within the next six months after a deal was reached between Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, according to AFP news agency. 

"This time we reached a real consensus…divisions have damaged our national cause and we are working to end that," said Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official. 

Both Hamas and Fatah were alarmed by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signing peace deals with Israel large week, which they regard as an act of betrayal that undermines their hopes of creating a Palestinian state. 

A spokesman for Fatah, the movement founded by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said: "We have agreed to first hold legislative elections, then presidential elections of the Palestinian Authority, and finally the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).”

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas, meets with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Credit: Anadolu

During the last round of elections in 2006, Hamas secured a surprise victory in Gaza and then ejected Fatah from the territory. 

Hamas has since ruled Gaza, while Fatah has run the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Numerous attempts at reconciliation, including a prisoner exchange agreement in 2012 and a short-lived coalition government two years later, failed to close the rift.

A poll earlier this year by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Research found that Hamas could beat Mr Abbas, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority. 

Mr Abbas and his allies in Fatah are concerned about Hamas extending its political influence over the West Bank, especially after tensions rose with Israel this year over plans to annex up to 30 per cent of the territory. 

The 84-year-old has been in office since 2005 when he won 62 per cent of the vote.