Amal experienced the Six-Day War in 1967; the fact that Yonnes was in Iceland at the time meant that he lost his right to reside in Israel. She was politically active through most of her time in Israel. At 13 she was imprisoned pending trial for two weeks for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, and received a six-month suspended sentence. She married for the first time at 16, and had the children Falastine (b. 1978), Fida (b. 1980), Wala (b. 1985), Majd (b. 1986), and Ahd (b. 1990), before leaving her husband after what she has described as an abusive marriage in 1995 and fleeing with her children to her brother Salmann (Suleiman) in Iceland. Later Amal said that she felt she had no rights as a woman under Shari'a Law.
In 1987, she gained a diploma in business studies via the YWCA and worked for an NGO.
Amal first lived in Iceland in 1983–84 while separated from her husband, working for Nói Síríus.

Assisted by her brother Salmann (Suleiman), Amal moved with her five children to Iceland in January 1995. There she worked as a cleaner; then in a bakery and in fish processing, and learned Icelandic. Soon she met her second partner, Heiðar, with whom she had Bissan Inga in 1997; Amal and Heiðar parted in 2000. Amal's partnership with a non-Arab man caused a major rift in her family, including with her brother Salmann (Suleiman), who disowned her.

In 2001, at the age of 41, Amal went to the University of Iceland, taking a BA in Social Sciences in 2004, with a BA thesis entitled 'Terrorism in Palestine: Religion or Colonial Imperialism?' In 2002, she received Icelandic citizenship (for which she had to give up Palestinain citizenship) and on 24 October 2003 founded W.O.M.E.N. (Women of Multicultural Ethnicity Network). From 2004, she was a counsellor at the Alþjóðahús.