Sakharov Network

A Palestinian born in 1951, Izzat Ghazzawi was a professor at Birzeit University and held a master's degree in English literature. He chaired the Union of Palestinian Writers, wrote novels and short stories, was a literary critic and organised and chaired the first International Writers' Conference in Palestine (1997).

Izzat Ghazzawi was a member of the Executive Bureau of the Palestinian Council for Justice and peace and was awarded the International Prize for Freedom of Expression in Stravanger in 1995. He was imprisoned and punished on a number of occasions by the Israeli authorities as a result of his political activities.

His life was marked by the murder, by the Israeli Army, of his son Ramy, aged 16. Ramy was killed in the courtyard of his school as he went to help a wounded friend. Despite this tragedy, Izzat Ghazzawi always continued to seek cultural and political dialogue with the Israeli people.

Together with the Israeli writer Abraham B. Yehoshua and the photographer Oliviero Toscani, he published a book on relations between the Palestinians and the Israelis which became hugely successful.

Izzat Ghazzawi died on 4 April 2003.

Through their lives and their commitment, Izzat Ghazzawi and Nurit Peled-Elhanan embody the hope of a negotiated, peaceful solution to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Their personal tragedies have not turned them into enemies; their pain has not been transformed into hatred, but instead into the energy required to find ways of respecting the rights of individual citizens.