Khalil Raad

Khalil Raad (, 1854–1957) was a Lebanese photographer who was known as "Palestine's first Arab photographer." Raad opened his own studio on Jaffa Road across the street from that of his former teacher in Jerusalem in 1890, engaging in direct competition with him. Subsequently, invited to live within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate by Bishop Ilya Karam, Raad resided there from the end of 1948 until his death in 1957.

A collection of postcards that bear Raad's signature are held by the Middle East Centre of Oxford University together with 40 prints of Ottoman soldiers in Palestine from World War I. Captioned in English, these photographs "had clearly been intended for use as propaganda by the Ottoman forces," according to Badr al-Hajj.

Academics who supported the Palestinian's national struggle, such as Bader Al Haj, Walid Khalidi and Elias Sanbar saw the photographs that Khalil Raad took showing the life in the country, criticized him saying he was helping the "Zionist" propaganda. Anneliese Moors, a Dutch researcher, said in response to the academics who supported Palestinian's national struggle believes that some of the photographs of Raad had connotations from the Bible or the New Testament which gave it legitimacy to the photographic characters and their lives. But, both her and Rona Sela an Israeli curator, emphasize that Raad first photographed for commercial and tourist purposes. To explain her opinion, Rona Sela says that Raad "lacked political awareness" and adapted to the patterns that appeared as stereotypical "colonial", which came as a direct effect from the scriptures of the Christians and Jews. Apart from a few political rallies, the photographer did not specify the conflict between Arabs and Jews in his work which occurred during his years that he was an active photographer.