Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
Iyad Salim Abu Hujair was born in Khan Yunis Governorate, southern Gaza Strip, on December 1, 1963, to a Palestinian refugee family originally from the occupied city of Beersheba. He is married and has two sons and three daughters. He completed his primary education at Mustafa Hafez Elementary School and Khan Yunis Preparatory School for Boys, and his secondary education at Khan Yunis High School. He attended Birzeit University and then An-Najah National University. He earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Tripoli in Libya in 1989. He completed practical training in traffic engineering at the Institute of Studies and Technologies in Metz, France, in 1995. He received a higher diploma in the foundations of education from Al-Aqsa University in Gaza City in 2001, and a master's degree in sustainable development from Al-Quds University/Abu Dis in 2019.
He worked as a designer and field supervisor in an engineering office between (1990-1996), then as a traffic engineer in the Gaza Municipality between (1996-1999), then as a coordinator of the student mediation project at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution between (1999-2000), then as head of the training unit at the same center (2000-2007), then as director of the same center / Gaza branch, and deputy general manager of the center since 2007.
Abu Hujair became involved in student activism at Birzeit University, becoming one of the cadres of the student movement. He participated in planning and implementing a number of its union and national activities. He became a member of the Engineers Syndicate Council for the Khan Yunis district in 1999. He then turned to community work by contributing to a number of campaigns, such as the Women for Civil Peace campaign, the Youth for Civil Peace campaign, the National Reconciliation Promotion campaign between (2008-2012), and campaigns against hate speech, and establishing the concepts of democracy, freedom of expression, human rights and citizenship among youth, women and children. He worked on projects related to methods of conflict resolution and student mediation in schools and universities in order to promote the values of tolerance and alternatives to conflict resolution, and to invest in student action leaders in order to find common ground among them to accept the idea of difference, and to push for the establishment of a special court for juveniles (children under the age of 18) instead of trying them in adult courts.
Abu Hujair adopts democratic thought and a civil state that guarantees all rights for different currents on the basis of respect for viewpoints and freedom of opinion and expression.
He believes that the results of the Oslo Accords were disastrous for the Palestinian people, especially since Israel exploited and thwarted them, while the Palestinian people are the ones paying the price through the continued Judaization of Jerusalem and the increase in the number of settlements in the West Bank. In his opinion, the Palestinian leadership agreed to this agreement in order to return within a certain philosophy. He believes that the division was one of the results of this agreement, as the Palestinian factions did not agree on a single national program. He believes that the negative effects of the agreement reached all levels, including the Palestinian Authority's dominance over and control of the PLO, the absence of national partnership, and the transfer of the PLO headquarters to the West Bank, which confiscated the freedom of movement of its leaders and cadres, and the freedom of Palestinians abroad to meet with those inside, which weakened the role of the organization, and it became devoid of its content after it was the moral home of the Palestinians.
He believes that the two-state solution is a failure and primarily serves the interests of Zionism. He believes that proposing the one-state solution at this time is unrealistic, and he calls for the option of keeping the conflict open with the occupation, and for the occupation to bear all the costs of its occupation, in exchange for the Palestinians working on a strategy to strengthen the resilience of the Palestinian citizen on his land, and adhering to the right of return of refugees to their homes from which they were displaced with full compensation according to United Nations Resolution No. (194). Abu Hujair believes in resistance by all available means and in all possible ways that can achieve the goal.
He calls for wisdom in the timing of using these means according to the appropriate circumstances in a way that serves the higher interests of the Palestinian people through the consensus of national and Islamic forces. He believes that the current Palestinian system operates with a limited margin of freedom, and that the failure to renew legitimacy and the failure to hold elections leads to the consolidation of a single vision, a single party, and a single man, which negatively affects the future of the entire political system and casts a shadow on the economic and social conditions. He calls for the development of a strategy of steadfastness for the Palestinian citizen on his land, for which all parties and national forces should rally, thus creating a challenge to the occupation in light of the deadlock in the Palestinian issue, the Arab defeat and rush towards normalization, and also in light of the Palestinian division that has affected all aspects of the Palestinian issue and its future, damaged the reputation of the Palestinians and their struggle, and given Israel a pretext to evade its responsibilities, to deal with the Gaza Strip with an iron fist, and with the West Bank by fragmenting and swallowing up the land little by little.
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