Amnesty International employee and journalist Hind Khoudary. Photo: Instagram.

An employee of Amnesty International has been denounced for getting a Gaza peace activist arrested by Hamas authorities for holding a virtual meeting with Israeli counterparts.

Journalist Rami Aman of the Gaza Youth Committee held the conference with the Israelis via the Zoom app, which has become popular as a means of maintaining social ties during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Facebook page for the meeting called it “an opportunity to speak with Gazans who not only do not hate us but are working tirelessly to open channel of communication between Gazans and Israelis.”

Hind Khoudary, who at the time of the incident identified herself on social media as an international research consultant for Amnesty, denounced Aman in a Facebook post – now inaccessible – and tagged three Hamas officials. Aman was arrested on Thursday and has not been heard from since.

In response, former Human Rights Watch official Peter Bouckaert told Khoudary, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“It is disgusting that a so-called ‘journalist’ got an activist for dialogue arrested by Hamas,” he later said. “Conflicts are resolved through dialogue and understanding, not hatred.”

Khoudary replied to Bouckaert in a tweet, asking, “Being ashamed of myself for fighting normalization with Israel?”

https://twitter.com/Hind_Gaza/status/1248854874059612160

Hillel Neuer of the watchdog group UN Watch, which fights anti-Israel bias in the international forum and NGO community, commented on the affair, “A human rights group cannot employ an accomplice to Hamas terror, someone who causes peace activists to be jailed and probably tortured, all because they engaged in dialogue. Amnesty should explain why they hired her in the first place, and why before that they had cited her as a supposed journalist.”

“It’s clear from her social media posts that Khoudary has been a long-time and open supporter of both Hamas and Hezbollah acts of terrorism against Israelis,” he added. “Amnesty must conduct an independent inquiry into who at the organization knew of Khoudary’s support for terrorist violence.”

In a tweet, Neuer said to Julie Verhaar, Amnesty’s Acting Secretary General, I am calling on your organization to fire [Khoudary] immediately & to launch an independent inquiry into why she was hired in the first place.”

@julieverhaar Ms. Khoudary's posts supporting Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism are all over her social media accounts.

I am calling on your organization to fire her immediately & to launch an independent inquiry into why she was hired in the first place.https://t.co/7OKyzo3cGR

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 12, 2020