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A Syrian Woman's Experiences with Hamas in Gaza
(Forbes) Allison Norlian - One of the scariest moments of Manar Al-Sharif's life was the day six men and three women Hamas operatives barged into her apartment, confiscated her phone and laptop, forcefully searched and blindfolded her, and took her to an all-women prison, where she spent two weeks in solitary confinement in a cell with no windows or light. Her crime: helping create a virtual event for Gazans to Zoom with Israelis. She was released after three months. Al-Sharif was born and raised in Damascus, but her family fled to Egypt in 2013 because of the civil war. Because she and her family are conservative, religious Muslims, her family preferred she attend college in Islamic-controlled Gaza. So in 2017, she enrolled in the Islamic University to study journalism, but left because the "Hamas propaganda was too pronounced....It wasn't professional and it wasn't journalism." Around the same time, she was sitting in her apartment with friends - both men and women - when building security called the police because Hamas forbids intermingling of the sexes. They took her to jail, where she was beaten for two days before being released. In October 2020, Al-Sharif, labeled a "dangerous person" by Hamas, was sent back to Egypt.