Description:

Laila El-Haddad is a talented blogger, journalist, social media activist, and parent-of-two from Gaza. She is author of the recently published book Gaza Mom: Palestine Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between, based on the award-winning blog she has written since 2004, and contributing author to The Goldstone Report: The landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.

She received her B.A. from Duke University and her MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

From 2003-2006, El-Haddad was the Gaza stringer for the Al-Jazeera English website and contributed regularly to the BBC and the Guardian. She has also been published in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the International Herald Tribune, and The New Statesman, among others, and has appeared on CNN and NPR. In 2007, she co-directed the award-winning Gaza-based documentary Tunnel Trade.

A running theme in El-Haddad's writing is the personalization of the situation of Gazans and Palestinians, a topic to which she brings her characteristic wry humor and introspective humanity about her daily life and those of other Gazans.