Palestinian Childhoods: Solidarity & Ṣumūd
Films & Events
Community Event
Exhibition Launch
Monday, 1st September
4.00pm – 6.00pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
Join us to launch this exhibition and events. There will be snacks, presentations, and children’s activities.
Hear from:
- Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian Associate Professor of Surgery, war surgeon, founder of the The Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund, and Rector of the University of Glasgow.
- Malak Mattar, Palestinian painter, illustrator, and author of children’s books
- Children from Parents 4 Palestine
- and more…
Attendance is free, but registration is essential. Book here.
International Conference
International Hybrid Symposium
Resisting the Silencing of Palestinian Children
UCL East, Marshgate Building & Online
Join us for a two-day hybrid symposium bringing together scholars, practitioners and young people to confront the global silencing, complicity and epistemicide surrounding knowledge production about Palestinian children. See details here.
Attendance is free, but registration is essential. Book here.
Community Event
Children of Palestine: A Zine Project
Thursday, 4th September
10.00 am-2.00pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
Children of Palestine” is a zine project and a creative intervention. It offers a space for Palestinian writers, artists, and creatives to reflect on what it means to be a child of a land under siege — a land whose people have been subjugated to a campaign of erasure for over a century. Through memory, culture, and creative practice, the zine will honor those who dig deep into their roots, their grief, and their joy to keep something alive.
This project is the luminous counterpart to our more sombre research. If we work relentlessly to document genocide, it is because we believe in the survival-and flourishing—of Palestinians as a people. We want to celebrate life, creativity, and cultural transmission in the face of destruction. Children of Palestine is our ode to that resistance. It is a celebration of the will not only to survive, but to make, to share, and to shine.
Organised by the Sabar Project.
Registration is free but essential. Book here.
Film Screening
Tale of the Three Jewels (1995)
Thursday, 4th September
7pm – 10pm
Pool Street Cinema, 1 Pool St, London E20 2AF
Yussef is a twelve-year old Palestinian child of the First Intifada. With his father is in prison and his brother a fugitive from the Israeli army, he lives alone with his mother and sister. Though his life is marked by violence, he lives in his imagination, often escaping from the refugee-camp into the Gaza countryside.
While hunting for birds one day, Yussef meets Aida, a young gypsy girl who poses a daunting challenge, leading him into a perilous adventure.
This lyrical and moving work was shot in the early months of 1994, while Gaza remained under Israeli military occupation, and was the first feature film ever to be shot entirely in the Gaza Strip.
Directed and Written by:
Michel Khleifi
Special thank you to the support of Open City Documentary Film Festival for this event.
Registration is free but essential. Book here.
Community Event
In what ways can anti-Zionist Jewish researchers support Palestine?
Friday, 5th September
4pm – 6pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
Join us for a discussion on how anti-Zionist research and activism intersect in the struggle for Palestinian liberation—with particular attention to how academic and artistic practices can foreground the experiences and futures of Palestinian children. Our speakers will reflect on how their work challenges settler colonial narratives and supports movements that envision safety, freedom, and dignity for all Palestinians.
Our two speakers:
Mai Omer is an anti-Zionist Israeli artist-researcher based in London, whose practice engages with themes of colonial and settler colonial technologies. They hold an MA in Visual Sociology from Goldsmiths University (2018) and are currently undertaking a PhD at King’s College London.
Evan Lorant is a digital anthropologist from the unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land of Vancouver, Canada. His research touches on social media and community formation, practice, language, and communication. He holds a BA (Hons) from Dalhousie University in Sociology and Contemporary Studies (2024) and is completing his MSc at UCL in Digital Anthropology.
Organised by Jews for Palestinian Justice.
Attendance is free, but registration is essential. Book here.
Family Day
Family Day
Saturday, 6th September
10.00am – 5.00pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
You’re invited to a day of creativity and solidarity specially designed for families. With a mix of hands-on workshops, film, and cultural activities, young people and their families can take part in meaningful sessions together, at their own pace. Children will learn Palestinian Arabic while preparing snacks, create street art exploring themes of solidarity and resistance, and enjoy a family-friendly film that blends imagination with lived realities. The day will end with a relaxed henna session rooted in Palestinian tradition.
Come for the whole day or drop in for a session – all are welcome!
Attendance is free but registration is essential. Book here.
Film Screening
Giraffada
Saturday, 6th September
2.30pm – 4.00pm (part of Family Day)
Pool Street Cinema, 1 Pool St, London E20 2AF
All ages welcome
A powerful, family-friendly film celebrating courage, friendship and hope in Palestine.
Yacine is a veterinarian in Palestine’s only remaining zoo. His ten-year-old son Ziad spends a lot of time with the animals and has a strong bond with the zoo’s two giraffes. One night, after an air raid on the city, the male giraffe dies. The female giraffe can’t survive alone and starts to slowly let itself die. Yacine must absolutely find a new companion for the beast, but the only zoo that can help him is in Tel Abib.
Community Event
A collaborative Community-Based Fabric Arts Project Naming and Honouring the Children Killed in Gaza
Wednesday, 10th September
11.00 am – 2.00 pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building, Community Classroom
We invite you to join our creative workshop to design and make a square to be included in the Children of Gaza Memorial Quilt. The workshop is delivered in collaboration with Each Child a Light, which is a community-based arts initiative, inviting people to collaborate on a large-scale, mixed-media patchwork quilting project naming and remembering the children of Gaza killed in the ongoing genocide. Each square names and honours a child killed in the ongoing genocide, and in the making, we offer a safe space to talk, to grieve, to mark and to remember all these young lives. Completed squares will be stitched into the panels of the quilt alongside those crafted by other artists, crafters and creatives across the ULK and internationally.
Attendance is free, but registration is essential. Booking link here.
Community Event
Children of Palestine: A Zine Project
Wednesday, 10th September
12.00 pm-4.00pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
Children of Palestine” is a zine project and a creative intervention. It offers a space for Palestinian writers, artists, and creatives to reflect on what it means to be a child of a land under siege — a land whose people have been subjugated to a campaign of erasure for over a century. Through memory, culture, and creative practice, the zine will honor those who dig deep into their roots, their grief, and their joy to keep something alive.
This project is the luminous counterpart to our more sombre research. If we work relentlessly to document genocide, it is because we believe in the survival-and flourishing—of Palestinians as a people. We want to celebrate life, creativity, and cultural transmission in the face of destruction. Children of Palestine is our ode to that resistance. It is a celebration of the will not only to survive, but to make, to share, and to shine.
Organised by the Sabar Project.
Booking is free but essential. Register here.
Community Event
Identity, Integrity And Solidarity: Shared Humanity, Shared Narratives
Thursday, 11th September
6.00 pm-8.00pm
UCL East, Marshgate Building
Join Ahmed Alnaouq (We Are Not Numbers) in conversation with Sunny Singh (Jhalak Prize), to discuss the shaping of identities and the humanisation of Palestinians, and the ethics and importance of global solidarity, in the face of genocide. Hear poetry from Amy Abdelnoor, Shahd Karaeen, Layla Maghribi and Kurdi Rania — poets, activists, writers from the Levant — and consider the role of storytelling in all its forms in the struggle against oppression. Be part of a collaborative process of solidarity, as we draw on your responses to the discussion to co-create poetry.
Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist based in London. He is the co-founder and director of We Are Not Numbers and a journalist with Palestine Deep Dive. Ahmed holds a degree in English Literature from Al-Azhar university in Gaza, and an MA in International Journalism from Leeds University, where he was a Chevening Scholar.
Sunny Singh is a writer, novelist, public intellectual, and a champion for decolonisation and inclusion across all aspects of society. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Hotel Arcadia, With Krishna’s Eyes, and Nani’s Book of Suicides, as well as the recent, A Bollywood State of Mind: A Journey into the World’s Biggest Cinema.
In 2017 she launched the celebrated Jhalak Prize for literature by writers of colour. She is also a founder of the Jhalak Foundation which focuses on a range of literary, artistic and literacy initiatives in the UK and beyond. Sunny lives in London where she is Professor of Creative Writing and Inclusion in the Arts at the London Metropolitan University.
Amy Abdelnoor is a novelist, poet, writer and teacher. While studying English and Arabic at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, she reconnected with her Arab family roots, living in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and later under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank during the second intifada. Her debut novel, Ever Land, which grew out of these experiences is forthcoming in 2026 with Penguin Random House. Amy co-runs Critical Collective, advocating against racism and oppression with a particular focus on Palestine.
Shahd Karaeen is a Palestinian poet, writer and performer who brings her words to life through powerful live poetry performances. She is the founder of Peace Is the Song, a platform for community artists, storytellers, and healers working towards justice, expression, and collective liberation. Her work weaves personal healing with resistance, amplifying silenced stories—especially those of oppressed Palestinians and marginalised communities—through poetry, spoken word, and embodied storytelling.
Layla Maghribi Layla is an international cross-platform journalist, writer, podcaster, sometimes poet, and once-upon-a-time lawyer. In March 2023, Layla launched the podcast Third Culture Therapy, which she hosts and which explores the unique and often complex causes, symptoms and cures for mental health issues within different communities and cultures. Layla is currently writing her first book, a non-fiction part-biography part-memoir about growing up as a British-Arab third culture child in England within a highly politicised and revolutionary family.
Rania Kurdi is a British-Jordanian actress, podcaster and confidence coach, best known for co-hosting the Pan-Arab Pop Idol, Superstar. After the success of her popular TV sketch show in Jordan, she partnered with UNFPA to blend comedy and advocacy in raising awareness of social issues through her performances and campaigns. She is also an ambassador for The Children of War Foundation.
Booking is free but essential. Register here.
Community Event
Contours of Solidarity and Sumud: Voices of Palestinian Educators and Children
Friday 12th September
1.30 pm-3.00pm
Online only
In an attempt to sketch the contours of our solidarity with the sumud of Palestinian educators and students, SWANA Forum for Social Justice invites Dr Saida Afouneh (An-Najah University, West Bank) and Dr Fadel Alsawayfe (Bethelem University, West Bank) to share their experiences and collection of voices on education in Gaza during genocide. These two professors of education will tell us how Gazan children and teachers demonstrate sumud in and through teaching and learning. They will amplify these voices which are either unheard or ignored by those who have the power to end their suffering. This event will be held online, entailing a mixture of images, videos, story-telling and live conversation between Dr Saida, Dr Fadel and the co-founders of SWANA Forum for Social Justice.
Booking for this online event is free but essential. Register here.
