Notable Palestinians — Diaspora

Browse notable Palestinians matching Diaspora. Discover individuals who shaped Palestinian history across literature, science, politics, arts, and sport.

Notable Palestinians — Diaspora

Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) — Mahmoud Darwish is widely regarded as the Palestinian national poet and one of the most important Ar…
Edward Said (1935–2003) — Edward Wadie Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935 into a prosperous Palestinian Christian family and g…
Omar M. Yaghi (1965–present) — Omar Mwannes Yaghi is a chemist of Palestinian descent who in 2025 became the first scientist of Pal…
Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972) — Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and political activist…
Naji al-Ali (1937–1987) — Naji Salim Hussain al-Ali was a Palestinian political cartoonist whose biting, uncompromising drawin…
Ali H. Nayfeh (1933–2017) — Ali Hasan Nayfeh was a Palestinian-American mathematician, mechanical engineer, and physicist widely…
Mona Hatoum (1952–present) — Mona Hatoum (born 1952 in Beirut) is among the most internationally acclaimed artists of Palestinian…
Elia Suleiman (1960–present) — Elia Suleiman is the most internationally celebrated Palestinian auteur, an actor-director whose dea…
Rashid Khalidi (1948–present) — Rashid Ismail Khalidi was born in New York City in 1948 to a father from a distinguished Palestinian…
Emily Jacir (1970–present) — Emily Jacir (born 1970) is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker whose conceptually rigorous, research-…
Hasib Sabbagh (1920–2010) — Hasib Sabbagh was born in 1920 in Tiberias to a Palestinian Christian family rooted in Safed. He gra…
Simon Shaheen (1955–present) — Simon Shaheen, born in 1955 in the Galilean village of Tarshiha, is among the most accomplished oud…
Hany Abu-Assad (1961–present) — Hany Abu-Assad is the only Palestinian filmmaker to be nominated twice for the Academy Award, and on…
Naomi Shihab Nye (1952–present) — Naomi Shihab Nye, born March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of the most celebrated Arab Am…
Yezid Sayigh (1955–present) — Yezid Sayigh (born 1955) is a Palestinian political scientist and one of the foremost scholarly auth…
Hanna Batatu (1926–2000) — Hanna Batatu (1926–2000) was a Palestinian-American historian and political sociologist widely regar…
Said Khoury (1923–2014) — Said Tawfiq Khoury was born on June 6, 1923, in Safed, in a Palestinian Christian family in Mandator…
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938–present) — Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, born on 22 April 1938 in Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine, is a Palestinian-Jordanian…
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1920–1994) — Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was a Palestinian novelist, poet, critic, painter, and translator, one of the mo…
Samia Halaby (1936–present) — Samia Halaby is a pioneering Palestinian-American abstract painter, scholar and political activist w…
George Habash (1926–2008) — George Habash, known by his nom de guerre al-Hakim (the doctor), was the founder and longtime leader…
Munther A. Dahleh (1962–present) — Munther A. Dahleh is a Palestinian-American electrical engineer and one of the most influential scho…
Michel Khleifi (1950–present) — Michel Khleifi is widely considered the father of contemporary Palestinian cinema and one of its mos…
Ismail Shammout (1930–2006) — Ismail Shammout (1930-2006), born in Lydda, is widely considered the founding father of contemporary…
Hiam Abbass (1960–present) — Hiam Abbass is the most internationally prominent Palestinian actress, a commanding screen presence…
Le Trio Joubran (Samir Joubran) (1973–present) — Le Trio Joubran is a Palestinian oud ensemble formed by three brothers from Nazareth, Samir, Wissam,…
Lila Abu-Lughod (1952–present) — Lila Abu-Lughod was born in 1952 to the Palestinian political scientist Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and the A…
Salma Khadra Jayyusi (1925–2023) — Salma Khadra Jayyusi was a Palestinian poet, scholar, anthologist, and translator who did more than…
Daoud Kuttab (1955–present) — Daoud Kuttab (born 1955) is a Palestinian-American journalist, media entrepreneur, and press-freedom…
Annemarie Jacir (1974–present) — Annemarie Jacir is one of the leading filmmakers of contemporary Palestinian cinema and a trailblaze…
Ibrahim Nasrallah (1954–present) — Ibrahim Nasrallah is a major Palestinian poet and novelist, born in 1954 in the Wahdat refugee camp…
Munir H. Nayfeh (1945–present) — Munir Hasan Nayfeh is a Palestinian-American physicist recognized internationally as a pioneer of si…
Kamal Boullata (1942–2019) — Kamal Boullata (1942-2019) was a Palestinian abstract artist and art historian born in the Christian…
Mourid Barghouti (1944–2021) — Mourid Barghouti was a Palestinian poet and memoirist whose work gave one of the most refined litera…
May Ziadeh (1886–1941) — May Ziadeh (born Marie Elias Ziadeh, 11 February 1886, Nazareth) was a poet, essayist, translator, o…
Taysir Batniji (1966–present) — Taysir Batniji (born 1966 in Gaza) is a leading contemporary Palestinian artist working across drawi…
Abdel Bari Atwan (1950–present) — Abdel Bari Atwan (born 1950) is a Palestinian-British journalist, author, and editor who became one…
Izzeldin Abuelaish (1955–present) — Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian physician, infertility specialist, and global peace advocate bor…
Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (1929–2001) — Ibrahim Abu-Lughod was born in Jaffa in 1929 into a family that ran a metal foundry, and as a youth…
Laila Shawa (1940–2022) — Laila Shawa was a pioneering Palestinian artist whose vivid, politically charged work made her one o…
Ismail al-Faruqi (1921–1986) — Ismail Raji al-Faruqi was a Palestinian-American philosopher and scholar of comparative religion, wi…
Kamilya Jubran (1962–present) — Kamilya Jubran, born in 1962 in the Galilee village of Rameh to a Palestinian family, is one of the…
Ghassan Abu-Sittah (1969–present) — Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon who has become one of…
Susan Abulhawa (1970–present) — Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian American novelist, poet, and activist who has become one of the most…
Hala Zreiqat (1962–present) — Hala Zreiqat is a Palestinian-Jordanian biomedical engineer recognized internationally for her pione…
Sabih al-Masri (1937–present) — Sabih Taher Darwish al-Masri was born in 1937 in Nablus, then in Mandatory Palestine, and is a cousi…
Abdul Majeed Shoman (1912–2005) — Abdul Majeed Shoman was born in 1912 in Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, the eldest son of Abdul Ham…
Cherien Dabis (1976–present) — Cherien Dabis is a Palestinian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actress whose work has brought…
Hisham Sharabi (1927–2005) — Hisham Bashir Sharabi was born in Jaffa in 1927 and educated at the American University of Beirut, w…
Larissa Sansour (1973–present) — Larissa Sansour (born 1973 in East Jerusalem) is a contemporary Palestinian artist who has become in…
Mai Masri (1959–present) — Mai Masri is one of the foremost Palestinian documentary filmmakers and a pioneer in chronicling the…
Amjad Masad (1987–present) — Amjad Masad is the founder and chief executive of Replit, one of the most widely used browser-based…
Rana Dajani (1970–present) — Rana Dajani is a molecular biologist of Palestinian heritage and one of the most internationally rec…
Reem Kelani (1963–present) — Reem Kelani, born in Manchester in 1963 to Palestinian parents from Yabad near Jenin and from Nazare…
Nur Masalha (1957–present) — Nur Masalha is a Palestinian historian and academic born in the Galilee, a Palestinian citizen of Is…
Mo Amer (1981–present) — Mohammed "Mo" Amer (born July 24, 1981, in Kuwait City) is a Palestinian-American stand-up comedian,…
Gigi Hadid (1995–present) — Jelena Noura "Gigi" Hadid, born April 23, 1995, in Los Angeles, is an American supermodel and entrep…
Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) (1935–1988) — Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, universally known by his nom de guerre Abu Jihad, was a co-founder of Fatah…
Mosab Abu Toha (1992–present) — Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, essayist, and librarian, born on 17 November 1992 in the Al-Sh…
Mona Saudi (1945–2022) — Mona Saudi was a leading Arab sculptor of Palestinian heritage whose serene, monumental works in sto…
Suheir Hammad (1973–present) — Suheir Hammad (born 25 October 1973) is a Palestinian American poet, performer, and political activi…
Salman Abu Sitta (1937–present) — Salman Abu Sitta was born in 1937 in the Beersheba district of southern Palestine, on land that bore…
Yousef Beidas (1912–1968) — Yousef Beidas was a Palestinian banker who built Intra Bank into the largest financial institution i…
Mubarak Awad (1943–present) — Mubarak Awad is a Palestinian-American psychologist and theorist of nonviolent resistance, often cal…
Bella Hadid (1996–present) — Isabella Khairiah "Bella" Hadid, born October 9, 1996, in Washington, D.C., is a Palestinian-America…
Farah Nabulsi (1979–present) — Farah Nabulsi is a British-Palestinian filmmaker and human-rights advocate who rose to international…
Sayed Kashua (1975–present) — Sayed Kashua, born in 1975 in Tira, an Arab town in the Triangle region of Israel, is a Palestinian…
Samih Toukan (1969–present) — Samih Toukan was born on February 27, 1969, into a Palestinian family originally from Nablus that ha…
Beshara Doumani (1957–present) — Beshara Doumani is a Palestinian-American historian recognized for transforming the social and econo…
Fayez Sayegh (1922–1980) — Fayez Sayegh was a Palestinian scholar, political theorist, and diplomat who became one of the most…
Leila Khaled (1944–present) — Leila Khaled is a Palestinian political militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation…
Ahmad (Mo) Khalil — Ahmad S. Khalil, known professionally as Mo Khalil, is a Palestinian-American bioengineer and one of…
Mohammed Omer (1984–present) — Mohammed Omer is an award-winning Palestinian journalist who emerged as one of the most prominent in…
Joseph Massad (1963–present) — Joseph Andoni Massad is a Palestinian scholar born in Amman, Jordan, in 1963. He completed his under…
Habib Hassan Touma (1934–1998) — Habib Hassan Touma, born in Nazareth in 1934, was a Palestinian composer and ethnomusicologist who b…
Tamam Al-Akhal (1935–2024) — Tamam Al-Akhal (born 1935 in Jaffa) is one of the first formally trained Palestinian women artists a…
Ali Abunimah (1971–present) — Ali Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist, author, and digital-media pioneer best known as t…
DJ Khaled (1975–present) — DJ Khaled, born Khaled Mohammed Khaled on November 26, 1975, in New Orleans, Louisiana, is an Americ…
Steve Sabella (1975–present) — Steve Sabella is a contemporary Palestinian artist working primarily in photography and photographic…
Elyanna (2002–present) — Elyanna, born Elian Amer Marjieh on 22 January 2002 in Nazareth, is a Palestinian-Chilean singer and…
Jumana Manna (1987–present) — Jumana Manna is an acclaimed Palestinian artist and filmmaker known for sculpture and moving-image w…
Rashida Tlaib (1976–present) — Rashida Tlaib is an American politician of Palestinian descent who in 2018 became one of the first t…
Farouk Shami (1942–present) — Farouk Shami was born in the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta, near Ramallah, the son of a local sheikh a…
Rula Jebreal (1973–present) — Rula Jebreal is an Italo-Palestinian journalist, author, and broadcaster who became one of the most…
Adnan Mjalli (1959–present) — Adnan M. M. Mjalli is a Palestinian-American medicinal chemist and pharmaceutical entrepreneur inter…
Saree Makdisi (1964–present) — Saree Makdisi is a literary scholar and public intellectual, Distinguished Professor of English and…
Tawfiq Sayigh (1923–1971) — Tawfiq Sayigh was a Palestinian poet, translator, and editor regarded as one of the most original an…
Kamal Aljafari (1972–present) — Kamal Aljafari is a Palestinian filmmaker and artist whose experimental, archive-driven cinema has r…
Hala Alyan (1986–present) — Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American poet, novelist, and clinical psychologist whose work has made h…
Fatima Bernawi (1939–2021) — Fatima Bernawi was born in 1939 in Jerusalem's African Quarter — the historic neighbourhood beside A…
Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1897–1972) — Wasif Jawhariyyeh, born in Jerusalem in 1897, was a Palestinian oud player, composer, poet, and the…
Sameh Zoabi (1975–present) — Sameh Zoabi is a Palestinian filmmaker celebrated for bringing satire and comedy to the depiction of…
Ramzy Baroud (1972–present) — Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian-American journalist, author, and historian whose long career has cente…
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (1984–present) — Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is an American-born journalist, producer, and media personality of Palestinian de…
Najati Sidqi (1905–1979) — Muhammad Najati Sidqi (1905-1979) was a Palestinian journalist, literary critic, translator, and act…
Yousef Khasho (1927–1996) — Yousef Khasho, born in Jerusalem in 1927, was the most ambitious symphonic composer of the Palestini…
Mohamed Hadid (1948–present) — Mohamed Anwar Hadid is a Palestinian-American real-estate developer known internationally for buildi…
Darin J. Sallam (1987–present) — Darin J. Sallam is a filmmaker of Palestinian heritage whose debut feature brought the human experie…
Ishaq Musa al-Husayni (1904–1990) — Ishaq Musa al-Husayni was born in Jerusalem on 25 December 1904 into the prominent Husayni family, o…
Abdel Mohsen Qattan (1934–2014) — Abdel Mohsen Qattan was born in 1934 in Jaffa and grew up in a prosperous Palestinian merchant famil…
Sana Odeh — Sana Odeh is a Palestinian-American computer scientist and educator who has become one of the most i…
Valerie Tarazi (1999–present) — Valerie Rose Tarazi is a Palestinian-American competitive swimmer who became one of the most interna…
Salvador Arnita (1914–1984) — Salvador Arnita, born in Jerusalem on 4 March 1914, was a pioneer of the classical-music renaissance…
Hani Zurob (1976–present) — Hani Zurob is a Palestinian painter whose richly textured, emotionally charged work explores exile,…
Adam Bakri (1988–present) — Adam Bakri is an internationally recognized Palestinian actor who achieved a remarkable debut on the…
Suzanne Al Houby (1966–present) — Suzanne Al Houby is a Palestinian mountaineer who made history as the first Arab woman to climb Moun…
Yaser Hamed (1997–present) — Yaser Hamed is a Palestinian professional footballer born in Leioa, in Spain's Basque Country, in 19…
Ramzi Saleh (1980–present) — Ramzi Saleh is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers in Palestinian football history an…
Simon Yacoub (1989–present) — Simon Yacoub is a Palestinian judoka born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1989 to a Palestinian father and a…
Yusra Jawhariyyeh Arnita (1924–2000) — Yusra Jawhariyyeh Arnita, born in Jerusalem and the eldest daughter of the celebrated oud player and…
Roberto Bishara (1981–present) — Roberto Fabian Bishara Adauy is a Chilean-Palestinian former footballer who became one of the most b…
Jaka Ihbeisheh (1986–present) — Jaka Ihbeisheh is a retired footballer born in Slovenia to a Palestinian father, who chose to repres…
Issa Boulos (1968–present) — Issa Boulos, born in Jerusalem in 1968 and raised in a musical family in Ramallah, is a Palestinian-…
Dima Bawab (1981–present) — Dima Bawab is a Palestinian-Jordanian operatic soprano and recording artist born on 2 September 1981…
Mayada Al-Sayad (1992–present) — Mayada Al-Sayad is a Palestinian long-distance runner who represented Palestine in marathon and dist…