He is the host and producer of a weekly podcast titled; Crossing The Line: Life in Occupied Palestine. Born of activist parents, Ali grew up for the first eight years of his life in apartheid South Africa , where his father - an anti-apartheid activist - was jailed and tortured. In 1990, Ali returned to South Africa and was detained and tortured for 550 days by the South African Security Police. Ali lived and worked in Palestine for three years in the Old City of Al Khalil (Hebron). In September 2004, Ali was attacked by masked settler youth while escorting Palestinian children to school and spent five days in hospital with a punctured lung.