Pioneering Palestinian Diplomat Leila Shahid Passes Away at 76

Leila Shahid, who broke barriers as the first woman to serve as a Palestinian ambassador, has died in France at age 76. She represented Palestinian interests across Europe for decades during critical periods of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

A trailblazing Palestinian diplomat who shattered gender barriers in international relations has passed away in France at 76 years old.

Leila Shahid made history as the first woman to represent Palestine in an ambassadorial role, serving in key European posts during pivotal moments in Middle Eastern relations.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas honored her memory, describing Shahid as a “model of diplomacy committed to the values of freedom, justice and peace,” and noting that “she remained faithful to her people’s message until her final days,” as reported by the official WAFA news agency.

Born in Beirut in 1949 during the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Shahid’s family originally hailed from Jerusalem and what became northern Israel.

Following early work in Palestinian refugee settlements, she moved to Paris during the 1970s to earn her doctorate in anthropology. By 1976, she had risen to lead France’s Palestinian student organization.

Shahid witnessed firsthand one of the conflict’s darkest chapters when she returned to Beirut in 1982 during the Sabra and Shatila killings, where Israeli-supported Lebanese Christian forces murdered hundreds of Palestinian civilians in refugee settlements.

The Palestine Liberation Organization appointed her as ambassador to Ireland in 1989, marking her historic achievement as the first Palestinian woman to hold such a position. She transferred to the Netherlands the subsequent year.

Her most significant diplomatic assignment came as Palestinian representative to France from 1993 through 2005, a period encompassing both promising peace negotiations and the eruption of the second intifada in 2000. During this time, she accompanied Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during his final moments before his death at a French military medical facility in 2004.

Shahid concluded her diplomatic career representing Palestinian interests to the European Union, Belgium, and Luxembourg from 2006 to 2014.

Beyond her diplomatic work, she spent years directing “The Review of Palestinian Studies,” a French-language publication documenting the conflict’s history.