Institute for Palestine Studies

12/08/2026

Palestinian folk songs have long preserved collective memory, cultural identity, and historical experience, carrying stories of land, displacement, resistance, and belonging across generations.

Zahra Khudruj examines the cultural and political significance of these songs as forms of oral history and collective expression.

Read the full article on Palestine Square at the link in our bio.

12/08/2026

Fifty years ago today, the siege of Tal al-Za‘tar entered its final phase. After months of blockade and sustained attacks by right-wing Christian militias during the Lebanese Civil War, the camp fell on 12 August 1976.

When this blockade failed to fully achieve its objective, the Lebanese rightist militias put the population of the camp under a total siege, destroyed all their sources for accessing water and launched an assault using heavy weapons. After 52 days of resistance by the camp, an agreement was reached between the Palestinian factions and the Kataeb Party through mediation by an Arab League envoy to evacuate all civilians.

But on the morning of 12 August, the day that had been set for the evacuation, the right-wing militias massacred the population, killing around 800 people. More than 3,400 had already been killed between 22 June and the eve of the evacuation, many of whom are still missing and whose fate remains unknown to this day. The camp was then promptly razed to the ground by bulldozers and never rebuilt, marking one of the deadliest episodes in the history of the Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon.

Explore this Historical Event on the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question's Overall Chronology:

Event - The Tal al-Za'atar refugee camp falls; more than 2,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, die in the siege and its aftermath. The camp, situated in...

12/08/2026

Restricting knowledge about Palestine reflects a broader struggle over the “capture of language,” posits Michel DeGraff — a capture that echoes earlier colonial efforts to use language as the “consort of Empire” and to stigmatize his mother tongue, Haitian Creole (Kreyòl).

For DeGraff, these intertwined narratives illuminate how language and linguistics can be mobilized for or against fascism.

In this latest article for the Journal of Palestine Studies, DeGraff proposes “liberatory linguistics” as a scholarly and ethical practice for demystifying the weaponization of language, resisting epistemic injustice, and defending the university as a site of critical inquiry in support of democracy.

Michel DeGraff is a Haitian linguist at MIT who faced administrative, legal, and governmental retaliation in the context of his scholarship on language and linguistics for decolonization and liberation in Haiti and Palestine.

Read the essay here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0377919X.2026.2695569

11/08/2026

While Israel continues its genocide in Gaza despite the so-called ceasefire, the occupied West Bank is being reshaped by a parallel campaign of military raids, killings, mass arrests, land seizures, settler violence, and the systematic destruction of the infrastructure that sustains Palestinian life. From Jenin and Tulkarm to Nablus and Hebron, entire communities are facing displacement as Israel deepens its control over the territory and accelerates efforts to fragment Palestinian society.

Between January and June 2026, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 66 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including 19 children. Among them was an infant shot dead in his mother's arms in Hebron. Settler violence, backed by Israeli forces, increasingly targeted Palestinian communities, livelihoods, and essential infrastructure, including water networks.

This post includes only a small selection of entries recorded between January and June 2026. To explore the broader pattern of violence, displacement, settlement expansion, and attacks on Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, visit the platform and search for terms such as "settlers" or "West Bank".

Go to chronology.palestine-studies.org → Explore → enter your search term and select a date range. The database provides access to thousands of documented events, allowing readers to trace developments and identify recurring patterns from 1982 to the present.

Explore more at the Palestine Chronology: chronology.palestine-studies.org

11/08/2026

Against a backdrop of unrelenting devastation across colonized Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and beyond, the Journal of Palestine Studies stands collectively proud in continuing to provide a platform for voices from Gaza, for narratives and perspectives that subvert the Zionist laboratory, and for the articulation of liberatory Palestinian epistemologies.

📚📣 The Journal of Palestine Studies’ newest issue features scholars from Gaza and around the world offering analysis, testimony, and reflections on Palestine’s intellectual, political, and cultural realities amid ongoing genocide and colonial violence.

Explore the issue now: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpal20/55/2

10/08/2026

Segal’s legal settlement is a win for academic freedom. This comes after three years of students and scholars being censored for speaking up against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.

Read Raz Segal's piece "Settler Antisemitism, Israeli Mass Violence, and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies":
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0377919X.2024.2384385

09/08/2026

Palestine's National Poet, Mahmoud Darwish passed away 18 years ago. At the end of 1947, and following clashes between the Arab inhabitants and the Zionists forces, he, along with some members of his family, sought refuge for a short period in the village of Naima near the town of Damour, southern Lebanon. In 1949 he and his grandfather returned secretly to Palestine to find that their village had been totally razed by the Israelis and that a settlement and kibbutz had been built on its site.

Continue reading Mahmoud Darwish's Biography on to learn more about his life and legacy:
https://www.palquest.org/en/biography/6550/mahmoud-darwish

Biography - Mahmoud Darwish was born on 13 March 1941 in the village of Birwa (Acre district) to Salim Darwish and Huriyya al-Biqa‘i. He was the second child in...

09/08/2026

On the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, al-Araqib stands as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle of Indigenous Palestinian communities to remain on their land.

Located in the Naqab (Negev), al-Araqib is one of forty-five Palestinian Bedouin villages in the Bir al-Sabi' district (the Negev/ Naqab) that are deemed “illegal” by the Israeli government. The village is representative of Palestinian Bedouin communities that have been engaged in a struggle with the Israeli government over land ownership and housing rights since 1948. The “illegality” of these villages stems from Israeli legal-political policies and practices of displacement, dispossession, and denial of land rights of non-Jewish residents and lack of zoning and planning in areas in which they reside.

The village has been a target of demolition orders many times. In January 2015, for example, Israeli authorities shot and killed a young Palestinian during an arrest raid in Rahat, sparking clashes between the police and local Palestinians, and a week-long strike in the town.

As Palestinians across Palestine continue to confront land confiscation, forced displacement, settler violence, and attacks on their communities, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the invasions in the occupied West Bank, the story of al-Araqib reflects a broader struggle for land, presence, and survival.

Explore to learn more about the Village of al-Araqib. Content available in Arabic and English.

Highlight - Rebuilding Home for the Hundredth Time and Beyond - al-Araqib —one of forty-five Palestinian Bedouin villages in the Bir al-Sabi' district (the Negev /Naqab) that are deemed “illegal” by the...

07/08/2026

The Nakba in 1948 not only resulted in the expulsion of nearly 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, it also displaced thousands of Palestinians within the newly created state, expelling them from their home villages and preventing them from returning. These people are called internally displaced persons or present absentees, but there is still no official definition for Palestinians internally displaced within the State of Israel.

This unique political status has shaped the lives of internally displaced Palestinians for generations. Although they remained within their homeland, they experienced many of the same realities as Palestinians in exile: dispossession, loss of property, separation from their places of origin, and exclusion from their right to return.

The "Present Absentees in Israel" Highlight from aims to describe this group of Palestinians, referencing the demographic data available, the areas they were displaced from, and areas in which they found refuge. It also addresses the legal definition of internally displaced persons, Israeli policies toward them, and their response to these policies.

Read it in full and explore the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question at palquest.org. Content available in Arabic and English.
https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/14342/present-absentees-israel

Highlight - Exiled in Their Own Homeland - The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 not only resulted in the expulsion of nearly 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland; it also displaced...

06/08/2026

A new Highlight available on examines the Mavi Marmara and the broader Flotilla Movement, exploring one of the most significant international solidarity initiatives organized to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

In response to Israel's siege on Gaza in 2007, international civil society actors launched a series of maritime initiatives shortly after its imposition, seeking both to deliver humanitarian aid and to draw global attention to conditions in Gaza. Beyond the delivery of aid, the flotillas sought symbolically and materially to challenge Gaza's enforced isolation from the outside world. For many Palestinians in Gaza, these initiatives represent one of the few visible international efforts to directly confront the blockade and contest the Strip's political and geographic enclosure.

The Highlight analyzes the events of 31 May 2010, when Israeli forces intercepted the Mavi Marmara, resulting in the deaths of ten activists and sparking widespread international condemnation. It examines the legal, diplomatic, and political repercussions of the raid, including its impact on regional relations, international law debates, and global perceptions of the Gaza blockade.
Read more about the origins of the flotilla campaigns, the organizations and activists involved, and the efforts to deliver humanitarian aid while drawing global attention to the conditions faced by Palestinians in Gaza. The full article is available in Arabic and English on :

Highlight - Transnational Solidarity for the Freedom of Gaza - Since 2007, Israel has maintained a land, air, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, severely restricting the movement of goods and people. Widely...