EXCLUSIVE: Moumen al-Natour invited the Mirror to his safe house in a small Italian town after his 'Great Escape' from Gaza where he was arrested and tortured 20 times11:56, 03 Jun 2026An anti-Hamas opposition leader told last night how he dramatically escaped from a hellhole in Gaza and is now safely living in Italy.‌Moumen al-Natour spoke to the Mirror from inside Gaza last year as he tried to evade daily capture from evil Hamas gunmen. Now after he has revealed he successfully got across the border he invited us into his safe house in a small Italian market town and said: “I’m so lucky to be alive.”‌His ‘Great Escape’ - which he calls a rescue operation from death and extreme danger - took weeks of secret planning. But he had to get out after being tortured and arrested 20 times.‌During Moumen's years of advocating for human and economic rights for Gazans, Hamas soldiers even held a gun to the head of his 10-year-old brother and threatened to kill him unless he revealed when Moumen was hiding. Despite his terrifying treatment Moumen was originally determined to stay in Gaza, hoping to help be a leader in the fight against Hamas rulers but he finally realised he had to get out or he would be killed.‌He launched a plan crossing dangerous frontlines between Hamas and Israeli forces, thanks to a determined Italian lawyer who had seen the Mirror articles and Moumen's posts on social media. She convinced the Italian authorities to agree to take and shelter the whole family that Moumen had sheltered during over two years of war - his seven brothers and sisters and their mum.Moumen is still so terrified of Hamas’s reach he insisted the Mirror could not reveal where he is now. Sipping coffee in a picturesque ancient square of an Italian city, he told the Mirror: “I was within a hair’s breadth of death all the time I lived in areas under Hamas control – almost through the war.‌“I faced very difficult situations - things I used to see only in Hollywood movies. Hamas detained me more than 20 times in its prisons in the Gaza Strip after I co-founded a group of young people called the ‘We want to Live’ Movement. That was to protest Hamas corruption and repression, not to overthrow them.‌“During that period before the war Hamas gunmen raided my house in Gaza City - more than a dozen times over four days. They came in the morning, in the evening, at noon. They beat my sisters. They opened the girls’ wardrobes and searched their private clothing."They beat up my ten-year-old brother Mohammad, and put a gun to his head, to make him reveal my location. Of course he had no idea where I was. To save my brother’s life, I rushed back to the house and surrendered. They took me away, tortured me, and days later let me go.”Moumen is still passionate about peace in his homeland. He speaks regularly to family and friends inside Gaza and is desperate to help build a better life for all Palestinians.‌He said: “I am so grateful being safe here in Europe, but I want to tell the world what is really happening in Gaza, and what we can do now. We don’t want Israeli occupation and we don’t want to allow Hamas any role.‌“If Hamas remain in any form, they will certainly militarise and incite against any new Palestinian ruler in Gaza. We need governance by technocrats, experts, and people who want the best for the economy, education, and health.“Building more mosques and more tunnels will get us nowhere. We need to force Hamas’s top men to get out of Gaza – give them safe passage to any Arab State. While they are inside Gaza they will never change their evil fanatical ideology, and our people will continue to suffer.‌“The Board of Peace may try to disarm Hamas but as things stand, that will fail. Without Hamas leaders inside Gaza, however, it’s possible to get the younger Hamas fighters to see that their weapons are no longer any use.“Then we need to rebuild Gaza – not just with bricks and cement, but also – most important – with a whole new way of thinking. We, as a Palestinian people, must acknowledge the existence of the Jewish people and Israel, and we also need the other side in Israel to teach generations in Israel that there is Palestine and a Palestinian people.‌“Only when this transformation is fully underway can the political leaders – and that means no-one from Hamas –work with the Israelis and to the Arabs and the international community to develop a much more co-operative relationship to govern Gaza – and bring a wider peace.”‌He added: “We need to build relationships – and get real understandings from the bottom upwards: Gazan doctors talking with Israeli doctors, Gazan lawyers talking to Palestinian lawyers, engineers to engineers, teachers to teachers. We need to teach the values of peace not hatred in our schools. Then we will create a Palestinian child who believes in peace with Israel, and an Israeli child who believes in peace with Palestine."Moumen had once been linked up by social media to a conference of 1200 lawyers in Italy. His bravery and his commitment to nonviolence deeply impressed lawyer Alessandra Casula, she told the Mirror in her lawyer's office in northern Italy.That admiration only increased as the war continued. "Despite imprisonment, torture, threats, betrayal, and years of persecution, he never became driven by hatred," says Casula.Article continues belowThe lawyer is trying to get Moumen, his four sisters, two brothers and his mum full refugee status in Italy - so far they just have special permits to be there. He plans to campaign for peace worldwide and return to Gaza -- and wants to play a role in Gaza once Hamas's power, and then Israel's occupation, will end.