Pam, married and in her late twenties, lives somewhere in California, a devout Roman Catholic who adopted six children after their mother died in a car crash.
Their worlds are far apart, but for Hani the contact from tapping away on the keyboard in the small hours is so exotic and imbues him with a sense of freedom that he cannot get anywhere else.
"Your thoughts can leave Gaza, but physically you are here trapped in this big prison," Hani says, dressed in a trademark drab brown striped shirt.
"Chatting is beautiful."
The shy 22-year-old is not alone. Whether at home or in Internet cafes, many young men trapped in this impoverished war-torn coastal territory, travel the world by cyberspace and more often than not find chaste or romantic companionship online.
"She's Pam not Pamela Anderson," Hani quips about his chat mate, referring to the busty Hollywood vixen famous for the "Baywatch" television show about lifeguards.
Hani met Pam a year ago in a chat room on religion where he hoped to convince non-Muslims to convert to Islam.
They started talking about the differences between their two faiths and consumer prices in the United States and Gaza Strip. Pam, who works in finance, sent him a picture of her husband and children.
He jokes to himself: "I asked her to adopt me, too."
His other best friend online is a university student from Pakistan named Nada. Sometimes they talk about life in Gaza.
But more often than not, their conversations drift to lighter topics like their shared love of English literature.
Nada cannot stop chatting about eighteenth-century romantic novelist Jane Austen's novels. But Hani prefers Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" and its orphan hero Pip.
Nada hates the book's love interest Estella, while Hani defends her.
Once Hani asked Nada for her photo, but she refused to send it. Hani understands.
"She's a good Muslim."
While Hani takes comfort in his two female companions, the chat room can also be a chilly place when he writes down his nationality and strangers abruptly end the conversation.
"When I say I'm 22 and from the Gaza Strip, the majority of people stop chatting."
If Hani's interests are esoteric and even platonic, other Gazan men use chat rooms to meet women and see them without the veils that shroud them in daytime.
Hani's friend Shadi, 17, will spend nights in Khan Younis Internet cafes, conversing online by Web camera with six to seven local girls typing away on computers at home. In this tiny backwater he could never go out on a date.
"It's impossible to do because we're a closed conservative society."
Shadi, who wears sports shirts and uses hair gel, grins and says that the girls wear makeup and no headscarves, in sharp contrast to the daytime when women walk in packs covered from head to toe.
He describes them as a passing fancy.
"I wouldn't want any of those girls to be my wife because they talk to a lot of guys [online]."
Sara, the girl he likes best, lives in Cairo. They've been e-mailing each other for three years and have traded photos.
"She's pretty. She has brown eyes and good morals."
He thinks of her as "like a girlfriend".
This summer, he wanted to visit Cairo, but as expected, Israel did not permit a young man, who fits their age category for security risks, to leave Gaza.
Now, Shadi and Sara also talk by mobile phone and she tells him about the latest Cairo movies.
He sighs: "Chatting is the best way to get out of Gaza."
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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