Laila el-Haddad
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Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist, writer, blogger, and media activist based between Gaza and the United States, who writes principally for the al-Jazeera English website and the Guardian Unlimited. El-Haddad was born in Kuwait. She was raised primarily in Saudi Arabia while summering in Gaza. Her father, Dr. Moussa El-Haddad is from Gaza City, her mother, Dr. Maii el-Farra, from the town of Khanyounis in southern Gaza. Both are now retired and reside in Gaza City. She was educated in Bahrain and the United States. She earned her B.A. from Duke University and her Master in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, after being awarded the Clinton Scholarship for Palestinian graduate students.
From 2003-2006, El-Haddad was the Gaza stringer for the Aljazeera English website.
Most recently, Laila made two Gaza-based documentaries for Al-Jazeera International (Tunnel Trade and A Rafah Playground) with Tourist With A Typewriter production company.
She has also served as a media consultant and contributed to the Beit-Sahur based Alternative Tourism Guide's Palestine guidebook.
A running theme in El-Haddad's writing is the personalization of the situation of Gazans and Palestinians by writing with humor and introspective humanity about her domestic life and those of other Gazans. By revealing Palestinians neither as terrorists nor as currency in a worldwide market of political opposition to western dominance, but as sympathetic people capable of wit and humor amid violence and the occupation of their territory, she thereby contributes a human voice from Palestine.
El-Haddad's work is also frequently found in the New Statesman, Daily Star, Electronic Intifada, le monde diplomatiqueand Pacifica Radio. Since November 2004, she has also authored an award winning blog called Raising Yousuf: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation now known as www.Gazamom.com. The site won the Brass Crescent Award for "best Mideast blog", was nominated as best Mideast blog in the 2007 Bloggies Award, has been selected as Blog of the Day by BlogAwards.com, and chosen as a Blog of Note by Bloggspot.com.
El-Haddad is married with one son, Yousuf, and one daughter, Noor. Her husband is a physician with Palestinian refugee status. Laila herself carries Gaza residency (hawia) and a Palestinian Authority travel document.
[edit] External links
- Guardian Unlimited
- "'Personal Voices: The Occupation is Not Over,' AlterNet, August 2005."
- "'Disengagement from Justice,' Washington Post, July 2005."
- "Gaza Families Live in the Shadow of Death, Electronic Intifada, October 2004."
- "'Rafah Counting the Dead,' Al Jazeera, June 2004."
- Selves and Others
