On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamza Abu Howidy wakes up amid chaos. People around him are celebrating. Others are crying. Since the early hours, messages have been flooding the phones of residents at the Greek refugee accommodation where Howidy is staying.

Hamas has attacked Israel. By the end of the assault, around 1,200 people will have been murdered and 251 taken hostage. The tears of those mourning at the refugee centre are not for the Israelis who have been killed. They are for relatives taking part in the attack. Howidy, meanwhile, remains silent. “I didn’t know how to react.” Just a few months before the Hamas attack, he had managed to escape from Gaza – fleeing the very people who were now being celebrated at the refugee centre for killing Jews.

How Hamza Howidy Overcame His Black-and-White Thinking

The 28-year-old recounts this three years later in an interview with the Berliner Morgenpost. “I wanted to leave the conflict between Palestine and Israel behind me, but it keeps coming back.” Howidy has since become an important Palestinian voice and is among the few who publicly criticise both the Islamist terrorist organisation Hamas and Israel’s right-wing government. In a world of black-and-white thinking, he looks for shades of grey.

That was not always the case. “To me, Israelis were soldiers who wanted to kill me or settlers who wanted to drive me out,” he recalls of the stereotypical image he was taught from an early age. “But it also partly reflected reality.” In 2021, Howidy met someone from Israel for the first time – on social media. The two engaged in a heated exchange about the conflict. Howidy was angry at the oppressor he saw in the Israeli. At the same time, he feared that the person on the other side might be working for Israeli intelligence, the Gazan recalls. “We couldn’t agree on anything.”

Nevertheless, he and the man on the other side of the heavily guarded border became friends. “We’re still in touch today.” But how was that possible? “There was a willingness on both sides to understand each other,” Howidy says of the unexpected friendship. “Neither of us tried to prove that the other side was pure evil.”

As a Dissident, Howidy Was Tortured by Hamas

By questioning the antisemitic narrative, Howidy was, in a sense, rebelling against Hamas. But he was also critical of the Islamists in other ways: “Hamas transformed society from a relatively secular one into a more religious society.” Howidy describes imams delivering sermons in public squares and a kind of morality police telling people what to wear. “But that was abolished again when it became clear that society would not accept it.”

Restrictions on freedom of expression and religion, instability caused by conflicts with Israel, hopelessness: after taking part in street demonstrations against Hamas, Howidy says he was arrested and tortured twice.

After his second arrest, he decided to flee. He was able to bribe an Egyptian border official with $500 to leave Gaza. He was lucky: just a few months later, following the Hamas attack on Israel, the price had reportedly risen to a hundred times that amount, according to Howidy. “Nobody in Gaza can afford that.”

Criticism of Demonstrations Glorifying Hamas in Berlin

October 7 was a turning point not only for people in Israel. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza since 2023. “Friends, relatives and neighbours of mine were among them,” Howidy says. “Like many of those killed, they had nothing to do with Hamas or October 7.” Cities in the coastal enclave have been reduced to rubble. Many speak of genocide. “We knew it was going to be bad,” Howidy explains, referring to previous military responses by the Israeli army to attacks from the Palestinian side. “But nobody expected suffering and destruction on this scale.” He often wonders how things could have reached this point.

Howidy condemns the violence in the strongest possible terms. “Is it legitimate to systematically kill civilians and journalists?” he asks rhetorically. But he also rejects celebrating the Hamas massacre. “I also mourn the people who were killed on October 7.” He considers it inhumane that far-left groups in Berlin plan to take to the streets on Wednesday under the slogan “Until Total Liberation” and celebrate the atrocities of October 7. Such demonstrations also disregard the concerns of many people in Gaza who have publicly protested against Hamas rule.

Some call me a traitor, others a terrorist.

Hamza Abu Howidy, Peace activist

“It exhausts me that people who have nothing to do with this conflict are constantly talking about it,” Howidy says. “And people in the diaspora can make maximalist demands without having to live with the consequences on the ground.”

Criticism from All Sides: What Gives Howidy Hope

By criticising both Hamas and Israel, Hamza Howidy has won few friends on either side of the polarised debate. “Some call me a traitor, others a terrorist.” On top of that, the German state also wants to deport him. Back to Greece, where he says he was threatened because of his critical stance towards Hamas.

Last year, more than 18,000 signatures were collected in support of allowing Howidy to stay. His deportation was ultimately put on hold because his health condition prevents his return, he reports. Torture, flight and hostility in exile leave psychological scars.

How does he manage, in the face of all this, to maintain a nuanced perspective and remain committed to peace? Howidy says he does not only encounter hostility. People from Gaza who follow him on social media have responded positively to his work. He also received positive reactions at a recent panel discussion in Berlin. And, he adds: “I believe in what I do.”

He wants to stay in Germany and return to the profession he already practised in Gaza: accounting – a job far removed from polarised debates.

This text was originally written and published on the 6th of October in German. It was translated into English with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).