This Is Palestine

While the world witnessed Israel’s genocide in Gaza, another war has been unfolding inside Israeli prisons. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including women and hundreds of children, are held under brutal conditions, many without charge or trial. In this episode, we speak with Palestinian lawyer Nadia Daqqa, one of the first attorneys to visit Palestinians abducted from Gaza after long months o...

Two years into Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, the destruction has reached unimaginable levels. Starvation, disease, and systematic attacks on hospitals have turned survival itself into resistance. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Palestinian Canadian emergency physician who has spent months on the ground in Gaza. He describes Israel’s illegal attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sys...

Sayfollah, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida, came to Palestine to visit his family, not knowing it would be his last trip home. On July 11, 2025, he was brutally beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the town of Sinjil, near Ramallah. This attack came amid a sharp escalation of settler violence across the West Bank. In this episode, we speak with Bahaa Fuqaha, the deputy chair of S...

Following their moral compass, student activists at Columbia demanded an end to the genocide in Gaza and called for a ceasefire. The response? Intimidation, suspensions, wrongful arrests, and, in Mahmoud’s case, being illegally detained by ICE and threats of deportation. How and why did the current student movement begin? What were the consequences of speaking out on Palestine? And what does the f...

This episode uncovers a harsh and overlooked reality: Israel’s unequal protection and systemic discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, which was particularly evident during Israel and Iran’s 12-day war, provoked by an Israeli attack on Iran. For nearly two weeks, most Israelis benefited from widespread access to shelters and rapid emergency response systems. Palestinian citizens of...

In today’s episode, we speak with Yara Eid, a young Palestinian journalist and human rights advocate from Gaza, currently based in London. Yara has worked with international organizations, including Amnesty International, and uses her platform to shed light on life under Israeli occupation and apartheid in Gaza. Yara is known for her viral interview on Sky News, where she directly challenged the a...

In this episode, we investigate Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Through firsthand testimonies and expert insight, we trace how food became tools of siege—cut off from over two million Palestinians. As hunger spreads and desperation grows, we examine how this crisis is manufactured, and who bears responsibility. Thank you for tuning into This is Palestine, the offi...

In this episode, we commemorate Al Nakba for the 77th year. We trace the story of one Palestinian family displaced from the al-Baqa‘a neighborhood in West Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba. From Victoria’s memories of fleeing her rose-filled home to her grandson Majdi’s search for what was lost, we explore how memory, loss, and resilience are passed down through generations. Through personal testimo...

In Palestine, journalism is not just a profession, t’s an act of survival, resistance, and memory. This episode, released for World Press Freedom Day, explores the brutal reality Palestinian journalists face under Israeli occupation: targeted killings, censorship, and the erasure of their stories. Through the haunting last words of journalist Husam Shabat and testimony from journalist Dalia Hatuqa...

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Noor Abdalla, a Syrian-American dentist and the wife of Mr. Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian student activist and legal U.S. resident who has been illegally detained by ICE since March 8, 2025, for speaking out about Palestinian rights. Mr. Khalil was abducted by ICE while coming home from a Ramadan iftar with Dr. Abdalla, who was 8 months pregnant at the t...

On March 23, a convoy of Palestinian paramedics rushed to the site of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah. They were on a mission to save lives—but they never returned. In this episode, we uncover the harrowing story of the Rafah paramedic massacre, where Israeli forces ambushed, executed, and buried 15 emergency responders in a mass grave alongside their ambulance. Through the haunting final video film...

Israel’s brutal system controls Palestinians not only in life but also in death. In this episode, we examine the Israeli government’s policy of withholding hundreds of Palestinian bodies, denying their families the right to a proper burial. Lawyer Isam Aruri sheds light on this long-standing practice, while Sanaa Daqqa shares her personal struggle to reclaim the body of her husband, Walid Daqqa, w...

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a renowned and beloved Palestinian pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, has been illegally held captive and tortured by the Israeli army for more than 59 days. On December 27, 2024, the Israeli army kidnapped Dr. Abu Safyia while burning and besieging the Kamal Adwan Hospital. In this episode, we hear testimonies from the family of Dr. Abu Safiya, i...

As Israel pushes to dismantle UNRWA, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees face an uncertain future. In this episode, we visit Al Jalazon refugee camp to hear from Mahfouz Safi, whose family was forcibly expelled from Beit Nabala in 1948 by Zionist militias. Through his story—and the voices of his sister, Jihad, we uncover the far-reaching impact of Israel’s crackdown on the agency that ha...

As the ceasefire in Gaza goes into effect, the Israeli army has launched widespread attacks against the West Bank. In this episode of “This is Palestine,” host Diana Buttu speaks with IMEU’s Sarah Abu Alrob about the ceasefire agreement breaking down what is means for Palestinians. The episode also delves into the Trump’s administration's actions giving Israel the green light to fully illegally an...

As we approach 2025, Israel continues to bomb, attack, and occupy the birthplace of Christmas. This year, church officials have shared that Christmas services across Palestine will be somber and highlight the call to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Experts are even warning that Israel’s genocide against Palestinians could lead to the elimination of the Palestinian Christians in the Gaza Strip. Befo...

In this episode, we speak to Dr. Nimer Sultany, a law professor at SOAS. We discuss the ICC and the ICJ; what impact these cases will have and whether we should be optimistic about these legal developments. Dr. Sultany speaks with host Diana Buttu about the unprecedented number of legal actions taken before international courts, namely the International Court of Justice (also known as the World Co...

In this episode of “This is Palestine,” host Diana Buttu speaks with Dalia Alahmad at IMEU’s Palestine office about the incoming U.S. Trump administration and its impact on Palestinians. Ms. Buttu speaks with Ms. Alahmad about the concerns Palestinians have for the impending administration while also addressing the Biden administration’s ongoing funding of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and hum...

In this two-episode special, host Diana Buttu speaks with award-winning Palestinian-American writers Fady Joudah and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who are both finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards. Dr. Joudah and Ms. Tuffaha comprise two of the only five shortlisted writers for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry, making this a foundational cultural honor for the Palestinian literary community an...

In this two-episode special, host Diana Buttu speaks with award-winning Palestinian-American writers Fady Joudah and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who are both finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards. Dr. Joudah and Ms. Tuffaha comprise two of the only five shortlisted writers for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry, making this a foundational cultural honor for the Palestinian literary community an...

Amidst Israel’s catastrophic genocide unfolding in Gaza, its military is escalating a relentless campaign of aggression across the Palestinian West Bank, marked by a daily barrage of military operations. Since October 2023, Israel has killed at least 760 Palestinians, including 165 children, and injured 6,300 others in both the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel has also held thousands more Palestini...

Since 1948, Israel has imposed policies and measures to control and hamper the Palestinian economy. In this episode of “This is Palestine,” host Diana Buttu speaks to Ali Hamdallah, a prominent Palestinian economist and analyst. Buttu and Hamdallah discuss the various ways Israel intentionally targets and controls the Palestinian economy to obstruct Palestinian sovereignty. In the episode, we hear...

Can you imagine being used as a human shield? In this episode of “This is Palestine,” we hear the horrifying testimony of “Walid,” a Palestinian doctor in Gaza who was kidnapped by the Israeli military and used as a human shield. Host Diana Buttu breaks down Israel’s long-held policy of using Palestinians as human shields as she shares the terrifying testimony of Walid. You will hear Walid explain...

In this episode of This is Palestine, host Diana Buttu takes us to the heart of Gaza, where education—once the cornerstone of Palestinian resilience—is under siege. Meet Salma, a 12-year-old student who dreams of becoming a journalist, and Fatima, a university student who refuses to give up on her education despite Israel’s relentless bombings, displacement, and the destruction of her university....

In this episode of “This Is Palestine” host Diana Buttu speaks with award-winning Palestinian-American law professor George Bisharat about utilizing international justice mechanisms to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes. For over 10 months, Palestinians have been forced to endure Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and attacks on the Palestinian people. As Israel continues to commit war crim...