Beirut Weeps For a Poet

CrossFireArabia
Culture
April 16, 2026

Lebanon mourns Khatoun Salma, a Lebanese national poet who was killed along with her husband in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their home in the Tallet al-Khayat neighborhood of Beirut Wednesday, 8 April.

Rasha al-Amir, publisher of Dar al-Jadeed, announced that the bodies of Khatoun and her husband were recovered from the rubble, Thursday morning.

Lebanese journalist Maha Salma also mourned her sister Khatoun on her Instagram account, writing: “My dear sister is in God’s care. May God grant me patience in the pain of her loss and the burning of my heart and soul.”

Poet and playwright Yahya Jaber wrote a tribute to Khatoun on Facebook, saying: “Yesterday, the Israeli airstrike cut down a poet with its sharp scissors, a poet of delicate Arabic.” Under the rubble, the conjunction “waw,” the plural “waw,” the feminine plural “nun,” the feminine suffix “ta,” the definite article “al-“: a massacre of language at the hands of language. Jaber attached a picture of the building where Khatoun lived to his post, saying:

“Here is the Khayat Hill building, and here on one of these balconies, we used to stay up late with Khatoun and her husband, Muhammad Karsht, in the late 198s, spinning yarns of laughter and sewing memories. We would recite poetry and remember our city, Tyre, and love Beirut, the capital.”

Lebanese poet Majida Dagher wrote on her Facebook page in mourning for Khatoun: “Under the rubble of her house in Khayat Hill, they found a poet lying among her shattered rhymes. The death of a poet in an airstrike on Beirut makes you feel that war is very, very close. The sound of bones breaking has become louder, and the smell of blood deeper.

Salma fell from the heights of poetry before she could bid farewell to ‘the last inhabitant of the moon.'” She thought Beirut was her tent, Beirut the roof of her poem, where she would hide, “embracing a woman waiting” for the dust to settle. But the dust became the tent of a new Beirut, a Beirut weeping, broken, martyred.

Salma, who studied Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut, published two collections of poetry, “I Embraced a Woman Waiting” in 2009 and “The Last Inhabitants of the Moon” in 2012, both with the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Jadeed. She first gained recognition in the 1970s, during her secondary school years, when she won a poetry prize. Later, at the beginning of this century, she became known in cultural circles for her relatively small but distinguished poetic output and her academic pursuits, which included studies in Sufism and Sufi mystics.

She combined profound knowledge with poetic sensitivity. She left her mark on the Lebanese cultural scene with a unique poetic voice, manifested in her literary works that carried the pain of humanity, exile, and memory. With her tragic passing, Lebanon loses a literary and human figure who wrote of the wound in a language that resembled nothing but truth.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Culture

Al Bahri: The Man Who Set Palestinian Theater

CrossFireArabia
March 14, 2026

He is a playwright and author of 12 plays, nearly 20 novels, and numerous translations. Jamil Habib Afara (al-Bahri) was known as the “Father of Theater.” He was born in 1895 in Haifa and his family name dates back to the mid-18th century, as his ancestor owned a merchant fleet that sailed the Mediterranean between Haifa, Acre, and Tripoli. This is where his family name originated.

He showed early interest in literature and writing. He and his brother, Hanna, were keen to revitalize the literary and intellectual scene in Haifa, establishing the National Library there in 1922. He first published the “Zahrat al-Jamil” (The Beautiful Flower) and later “al-Zahra” (The Flower) which was initially a weekly publication that later became a bi-weekly and continued publication for about nine months after his death in 1931. His last piece was

a journalistic investigation into the execution of the three martyrs: Muhammad Jamjoum, Fuad Hijazi, and Ata al-Zeer, in the city of Acre in 1930. He dedicated his time and his newspaper that day to the souls of these martyrs, leading with: “The terrible hour in Haifa and all of Palestine: Let us commemorate those who gave their lives for the homeland.” A large funeral was held for him, and poems and eulogies were recited and published in the Palestinian press, such as the “Al-Karmel” and “Falastin,” newspapers.

The Department of Culture of the Palestine Liberation Organization posthumously awarded him the Jerusalem Medal for Culture and Arts in 1990, and the Palestinian Ministry of Culture reprinted his first book, “The History of Haifa,” in 2022.

Culture

Palestine Mourns a Giant

CrossFireArabia
March 8, 2026

By Dr Hussan Zomlot

We bid farewell to Dr. Walid Khalidi — a national treasure, a guardian of memory, and a mentor to generations.

Born in Jerusalem in 1925, he was one of the most commanding Palestinian voices of the modern era. For more than seven decades, he dedicated his life to bearing witness — documenting what happened to Palestine in 1948 with unflinching honesty and scholarly precision, and ensuring that new generations understand Palestine as it was, as it is, and as it must one day be again. He was the teller of our history and the keeper of our collective memory.

I first had the honour of meeting Dr. Khalidi in 2008 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. By then, he had long made Cambridge his home after decades of teaching and research at institutions including Oxford, the American University of Beirut, and Harvard.

Over the years that followed, his home in Cambridge became a place of refuge and reflection. We would sit for hours speaking about Palestine — its past, its wounds, and its future. He gave generously of his time, wisdom, and spirit. Even through the darkest years — and none have been darker than these last two — he remained a source of steadiness and moral clarity. His emails, arriving with the care and weight of a mentor who never stopped believing, were a lifeline. The last came only weeks ago.

Dr. Khalidi’s extraordinary impact was not only in his scholarship but in his refusal to allow Palestine to be erased. Through landmark works such as Before Their Diaspora and All That Remains, and through the institutions he helped build — most notably the Institute for Palestine Studies — he ensured that the story of our people would be preserved with rigour and dignity for generations to come.

He devoted his life entirely to Palestine — through scholarship, diplomacy, and mentorship. To countless Palestinian researchers, students, and public servants, he was a teacher and a guiding light.

Today, as news of his passing reaches us, I was honoured to speak with his son, Dr. Ahmed Khalidi — himself a distinguished Palestinian scholar — to share my condolences and memories. What I felt most was a proud sadness: proud of everything Dr. Khalidi gave to Palestine and to all of us who followed his path, and sad because the world is immeasurably diminished without him.

Today, Jerusalem mourns one of its most distinguished sons, as it once mourned Edward Said. Jaffa mourns as it did with Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. Nablus mourns as it did with Fadwa Tuqan. Palestine mourns a giant.

We shall honour Dr. Walid Khalidi in the only way he would have wanted — by continuing the struggle for truth, for justice, and for liberation, until the day scholars walk freely through the gates of a great university in Jerusalem that bears his name, and the Palestine he devoted his life to documenting stands free.