We have compiled a list of resources exploring Palestine: its history, its culture and its struggle. This list of course only covers a tiny fraction of that which is out there, but we have tried to include some that are free, which are widely available (e.g. on Netflix), which focus on Gaza specifically, or which are exhibitions happening right now that you can visit. We will continue to update it with any new, free access resources as they come available.
Donate
Medical Aid for Palestinians is responding to the current emergency in Gaza, where hospitals are struggling to cope with an influx of serious injuries.
MAP’s team on the ground is releasing their entire pre-positioned stock of essential drugs, disposables and essential healthcare supplies from their warehouses to hospitals treating those injured in Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza.
An international human rights organisation and registered UK charity dedicated to supporting the world’s most marginalised communities through advocacy, activism and holistic humanitarian projects.
They have a permanent team on the ground in Gaza.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA)
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF)
Fundraising Initiatives / Events
The Imperialists Are Still Alive! on Shasha Movies
Watch Zeina Durra’s cult classic The Imperialists Are Still Alive about a Manhattan party girl of Arab descent navigating the Lower East Side amidst post 9/11 paranoia.
By making this film available for free, Shasha Movies encourage you to donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians, using the link below the film on their website.
Due to international distribution regulations, the film is only available to view in the UK.
Visit / Attend
Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery @ The Whitworth, Manchester. 24 November 2024 – 7 April 2025
Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery explores the historical life and contemporary significance of Palestinian embroidery. This ancient and beautiful practice remains an important living tradition and the most prominent cultural material of Palestine today. Curated by Rachel Dedman, the exhibition looks at the ways in which embroidery, primarily undertaken by women, has evolved through a century of turbulent history for the Palestinian people.
(Exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge pictured)
In the shade of the sun @ Mosaic Rooms (Free entry)
In the shade of the sun contemplates the relationship between politics and aesthetics by an exciting new generation of Palestinian artists. The exhibition comprises new commissions by artists Mona Benyamin, Xaytun Ennasr and Dina Mimi as well as a new sonic performance by Makimakkuk.
Moving between mediums that include film, installation, music and gaming, In the shade of the sun brings together artists that are forging a new language to think about and with Palestine. Their individual practices intertwine in soft expressions and radical politics, from the absurd to the poetic, as they make work for future times within the crisis of the present.
Read
Makan are a Palestinian-led transformative education organisation that strengthens voices for Palestinian rights.
They help to transform the existing narrative on Palestine-Israel to one that upholds freedom, justice and equality for all by delivering educational workshops and trainings on Palestine, creating useful resources and tools for human rights advocates, and connecting people and organisations active on the issue to one another.
Their resources include Palestine 101s, historical overviews, glossaries, courses and much more.
Gentle Radical’s Palestine Book Club Resource List
The Palestine Book Club was set up in 2021 to encourage people to educate themselves around how – in fact – very uncomplicated the story of Palestinian Occupation is. Indeed, how much commonality Palestine holds with other indigenous struggles against the brutality and systematic violence, of settler colonial states.
Gentle/Radical have updated their resource list now to include specific writing/information about the history of Gaza, links to journalists on the ground in Gaza, and articles that they’ve found helpful, written since October 7th.
Free eBook downloads from Verso Books
Verso Books have collated their free ebooks, reading lists and ongoing publishing on the Verso Blog. These resources challenge much of the zionist ideology concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel, as well as offering a clear history of the occupation, Israel’s military industrial complex, and this latest explosion of violence in Gaza.
Ebooks include Ilan Pappe’s Ten Myths About Israel and Gideon Levy’s The Punishment of Gaza.
STUART Paper Issue 2: The Openness of the horizon to which I am not
Mosaic Rooms have made STUART Paper Issue 2: The Openness of the horizon to which I am not open access and downloadable. The issue is a live archive of artists’ thoughts and visual notes on the subject of solidarity with Palestine. They have also linked here reading resources collated by their community of friends, artists and academics.
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba – the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people – and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.
Adania Shibli was due to be awarded a prize for Minor Detail at the Frankfurt Book Fair (one of the largest publishing conventions in the world) in October 2023. However, due to the outbreak of the war, the organisers decided to ‘postpone’ the prize giving, prompting concerns that the fair was ‘silencing Palestinian voices’.
The Book of Gaza – edited by Atef Abu Saif with various authors
Under the Israeli occupation of the ’70s and ’80s, writers in Gaza had to go to considerable lengths to ever have a chance of seeing their work in print. Manuscripts were written out longhand, invariably under pseudonyms, and smuggled out of the Strip to Jerusalem, Cairo or Beirut, where they then had to be typed up. Consequently, fiction grew shorter, novels became novellas, and short stories flourished as the city’s form of choice. Indeed, to Palestinians elsewhere, Gaza became known as ‘the exporter of oranges and short stories’.
This anthology brings together some of the pioneers of the Gazan short story from that era, as well as younger exponents of the form, with ten stories that offer glimpses of life in the Strip that go beyond the global media headlines; stories of anxiety, oppression, and violence, but also of resilience and hope, of what it means to be a Palestinian, and how that identity is continually being reforged; stories of ordinary characters struggling to live with dignity in what many have called ‘the largest prison in the world’.
The Drone Eats With Me – Atef Abu Saif
On 7 July 2014, in an apparent response to the murder of three teenagers, Israel launched a major offensive against the Gaza Strip, lasting 51 days, killing 2145 Palestinians (578 of them children), injuring over 11,000, and demolishing 17,200 homes. The global outcry at this collective punishment of an already persecuted people was followed by widespread astonishment at the pro-Israeli bias of Western media coverage. The usual news machine rolled up, and the same distressing images and entrenched political rhetoric were broadcast, yet almost nothing was reported of the on-going lives of ordinary Gazans – the real victims of the war.
One of the few voices to make it out was that of Atef Abu Saif, a writer and teacher from Jabalia Refugee Camp, whose eye-witness accounts (published in The Guardian, The New York Times, and elsewhere) offered a rare window into the conflict for Western readers. Atef’s complete diaries of the war allow us to witness the full extent of that summer’s atrocities from the most humble of perspectives: that of a young father, fearing for his family’s safety, trying to stay sane in an insanely one-sided war.
9 Short Stories by Palestinian Women Writers on ArabLit (Free Access)
For Women In Translation Month 2022, literary magazine and platform ArabLit compiled a list of 9 short stories by Palestinian women writers available online in English translation. Authors include Nayrouz Qarmout, one of the handful to have had a full short story collection published in English; well-known and celebrated writers like Adania Shibli, Liana Badr, and Sheikha Hussein Hlewa; plus the great Samira Azzam (1927-1967).
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappé
Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe’s groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.
Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called “ethnic cleansing”. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.
Watch
PalFest: How Empires End – 13.12.23
How Empires End brought together a line-up of major international, Palestinian, Jewish and London talent, including Ahmed Alnaouq, Raymond Antrobus, Omar Barghouti, Morgan Bassichis, Yara Eid, Mohammed el-Kurd (pictured), Sabrina Mahfouz, Max Porter and Kamila Shamsie with music from Soweto Kinch. The event featured powerful speeches, spoken word, poetry, play readings and more.
As well as completely selling out London’s Troxy, the event was also livestreamed globally. You can watch back the video free on Youtube.
Palestine Film Platform (Free to access)
Palestine Film Platform is an initiative launched by Palestine Film Institute in collaboration with filmmakers from Palestine and Palestinian cultural institutions.
The Platform streams a Palestinian Feature Film every week for free.
Right now (17.10.23), in response to the war on Gaza, they have put together a selection of films to watch online for free entitled Unprovoked Narratives, a series celebrating the beauty of Gaza, its people, its struggle and its survival. The programme aims to resist the demonisation of this beautiful place and features films spanning 5 decades.
Farha by Darin J. Salam (Watch on Netflix)
Inspired by true events, Farha tells the story of a young girl whose dreams change from seeking an education in the city to survival in Palestine, 1948.
Darin J. Sallam’s unflinching debut feature revisits the violence of the Nakba – the forced expulsion of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homeland – through the eyes of the titular teenager.
Mo (TV series – Watch on Netflix)
Mo Najjar straddles the line between two cultures, three languages and a ton of foolishness as a Palestinian refugee constantly living one step away from asylum on the path to U.S. citizenship. The series stars comedian Mo Amer as the titular character and is loosely based on Amer’s own life as a Palestinian refugee living in Houston, Texas.
200 Meters by Ameen Nayfeh (Watch on Netflix)
Palestinian director Ameen Nayfeh’s debut drama shows the life-threatening struggles of daily life under occupation in an urgent story of resistance, dignity, family and hope.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has had an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father’s love won’t give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall.
The Present by Farah Nabulsi (Watch on Netflix)
Yusuf and his daughter set out to buy his wife an anniversary gift, a gesture demanding much patience and negotiation skills in the West Bank. The Present is a 2020 short film directed by Farah Nabulsi and co-written by Nabulsi and Hind Shoufani. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film and in 2021, it won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film.
Listen
Until Liberation Learn Palestine by Radio Alhara
Radio Al Hara’s Until Liberation Learn Palestine. Released in 2023 in commemoration of 75 years since the Nakba, it features lectures, talks, interviews, stories, poetry and sound recordings.
Archive
Voices for Gaza – Sunday 12 November
Arts Canteen and guest curators Amani Saeed, Sara Al Ghanem and Sufia Sadullah invite you to Voices For Gaza.
During this painful and difficult time, this event offers a space to reflect and re-energise through a gathering of artist friends, as well as bringing together different communities to fundraise, learn, grieve and heal.
Featuring music from Bassel Hariri, Adib Rustami, Tara Jaff, Saied Silbak and Amrit Kaur and films by Ahmad Saleh, plus readings by Hannah Khalil, Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso,Layla Maghribi, Nora Parr and storyteller Alia Alzougbi. We’ll hear poetry from Dana Dajani, Zohab Khan, Shareefa Energy, Simran Uppal and Eleanor Penny and a healing circle led by Sara Alsaraf.
The event will also include stalls from Zaytoun CIC, Saqi Books, Toum & Tahini, Soraya Syed and Huq That. Food and drink will be available to purchase and is not included in the entry price.
Bawa and Mathqaf present ‘Prints for Palestine’–an emergency relief art sale dedicated to raising funds to deliver humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. International shipping is available, free shipping to GCC. All proceeds donated to Kuwait Red Crescent Society.
Six Films For Palestine – Available until 22 November
To help raise money to support Palestinians as they deal with this current escalation of violence, Other Cinemas are hosting a month-long online solidarity screening programme featuring a collection of six films by Palestinian filmmakers. These films explore all the ways that the Israeli occupation stifles life and the many more ways that Palestinians resist and persist. All donations will be split evenly between Medical Aid for Palestinians and Other Cinema co-runner Arwa’s relatives in Gaza.
London Palestine Film Festival, 17 – 30 November, various cinemas across London
London Palestine Film Festival returns to cinemas across London with its annual programme showcasing both highly established filmmakers as well as fresh and emerging talent. For two weeks in November, get ready for crucial dialogue regarding Palestine’s film industry, its culture and its politics.
Bristol Palestine Film Festival, 2 – 10 December, various venues in Bristol
The Bristol Palestine Film Festival has been running since 2011. It takes place every December and showcases an exciting mix of Palestinian films, including documentaries, features and shorts, as well as music and arts events across a range of venues.
This year’s festival runs from 2 – 10 December, kicking off with an already sold out poetry event featuring special guest Lowkey. They have screenings of SAFAR favourites Farha and Foragers, plus Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberius, the restored version of classic The Dupes, and much more.
They will be selling merch in aid of Medical Aid For Palestinians and also running a fundraiser screening of the documentary film Gaza, followed by a Q&A with the director.
2 – 10 December, various venues in Bristol
Ticket costs vary