Laila el-Haddad

Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian author and public speaker based in the United States. She lectures on Gaza, the intersection of food and politics, and contemporary Islam. She is also a policy advisor with Al-Shabaka: the Palestinian Policy Network.

She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between (Gaza Mama: Politics and Parenting in Palestine), co-author of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey and co-editor of Gaza Unsilenced.

Personal life and background

El-Haddad was born in Kuwait and raised primarily in Saudi Arabia, where her parents worked, and she spent her summers in Gaza.

She traveled to the United States to attend Duke University, and then went on to receive her MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she was awarded the Clinton Scholarship for Palestinian graduate students. She moved to Gaza to work as a journalist while her husband remained in the US. The experience of constantly waiting, whether for documentation or for borders to open, informs her take on the issues that Palestinians face today.

She has been published in The Economist, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, and Saveur, and she has been a guest on al Jazeera, NPR stations, CNN, and the BBC.

In 2025, her essay "A Cuisine Under Siege" published in Saveur won a James Beard Award in the Personal Essay with Recipes category.

Writing

El-Haddad has published two books. Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between, published in 2010, is a compilation of El-Haddad's blogs and other writing about her daily life as she covers the story of Gaza while living it and trying to explain it to her children.