Decades later, Samar Kabouli still remembers gathering with the women in her family, drinking cardamom coffee and embroidering colorful Palestinian patterns onto fabric.
Born in Lebanon to Palestinian refugees, Kabouli had never seen the homeland her parents were forced to leave. Yet every stitch strengthened her connection to it.
Known as tatreez, the traditional Palestinian embroidery has been part of Kabouli’s life since her teenage years, when she began sewing to earn an income. Beyond financial support, the craft has become a lasting link to the land her parents lost during the 1948 mass displacement Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe.
During the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel. Israel did not allow them to return.
Kabouli
For Kabouli, embroidery is also a statement of endurance.
“We’re still here,” she said. “All what has been happening in Gaza … and we’re still standing and we’ll not forget the cause.”
Across the Palestinian diaspora, from refugee camps and community sewing circles to museums and online workshops, tatreez has become far more than decorative art.
For many, it celebrates cultural heritage, connects scattered communities with their homeland and serves as a visual language for preserving stories. Whether refugees or not, many Palestinians see the embroidery as an expression of identity, a record of history and a form of cultural resistance.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza, some artisans have also used tatreez to raise money for people affected by the conflict or create designs reflecting events in the enclave.
“We had a lot of people who came and they’re like, ‘OK, we want to do a T-shirt with a Gaza chest or we want to do a scarf with the Gaza motif,'” said Ali Jaafar, general manager of the Inaash Association.
The Lebanon-based organization provides embroidery work to Palestinian women in refugee camps while helping preserve the tradition. It produces embroidered clothing, home décor and artwork and exhibits the craft in museums and galleries.
Preserving heritage through culture
Efforts to safeguard tatreez in Palestinian communities at home and abroad reflect broader concerns about protecting a cultural heritage many fear is being erased.
“Palestinian tatreez is an identity and a document of our presence in every Palestinian village and town,” said Maha Saca, founder and director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
She said historic embroidered thobes, or dresses, document Palestinian life before the displacement of 1948.
“The Palestinian woman has written the story of her village through motifs from her surrounding environment and her beliefs,” Saca said. “We’re struggling through culture and saying we have roots.”
In 2021, UNESCO added Palestinian embroidery to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In New York, Lina Barkawi, who teaches tatreez through her small business, said growing interest reflects a broader effort to preserve Palestinian identity.
“The constant fight for liberation and having a Palestinian identity that’s recognized globally is really what has been driving a lot of this documentation,” she said.
Tradition passed through generations
In Arabic, tatreez refers both to embroidery generally and to the distinctive Palestinian style. The craft is traditionally passed from grandmothers and mothers to younger generations, though some people also seek formal instruction.
Historically, women incorporated designs inspired by their surroundings. According to Saca, the patterns, colors and motifs on old thobes can reveal details about a woman’s life, her community and her region.
Those links to place carry particular significance in the Palestinian context, including for areas now within Israel.
“How do we have a Jaffa thobe if we hadn’t been in Jaffa?” Saca said. “We write history on our thobes.”
The tradition also reflects continuity across generations. Saca said her grandmother’s embroidered wedding dress featured motifs associated with Bethlehem, and those same designs were incorporated into her granddaughter’s baptism gown.
Tatreez has also taken on political significance.
“Just being able to have some of the dresses from pre-1948 is a political act,” Barkawi said.
She also pointed to the “intifada thobe,” which incorporated embroidered Palestinian national symbols, including the flag, during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that began in 1987.
Stitching grief into cloth
After the Gaza war began following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, fashion designer Hama Hinnawi turned to tatreez to express mourning.
Traditionally known for its bright colors, the embroidery took on a different form. Hinnawi began stitching black thread onto black fabric to reflect the deaths, destruction and displacement in Gaza. She has also adapted iconic images from the war into new embroidered motifs.
“We have a big responsibility on our shoulders to tell this story, not to be buried for the next generations … through tatreez, through art, through speaking,” she said.
Born in Jordan to Palestinian parents, Hinnawi combines traditional embroidery with contemporary fashion to introduce new audiences to Palestinian heritage.
To her, tatreez represents home.
“It’s identity, pride, storytelling,” said Hinnawi, who divides her time between Chicago and Jordan.
She has created embroidery jobs for Palestinian women in refugee camps in Jordan, spoken about tatreez in the United States and, before the war, worked with women in Gaza.
Barkawi also leads an online community of Palestinian and non-Palestinian embroiderers. Some members have produced designs sold to raise money for families in Gaza, including one featuring a “water and seeds” motif with the message, “Feed Gaza Now.”
Members living in different countries also recreated a tapestry that once hung in a Gaza home destroyed during the war, each embroidering a section before sending it to the next participant.
Born in the United States to a Palestinian father and Panamanian mother, Barkawi said learning tatreez strengthened her connection to her Palestinian heritage.
Embroidering personal histories
Completing her first thobe took Barkawi two years.
She incorporated motifs with personal significance, including palm trees representing her Arabic name and Panama’s national flower in honor of her mother.
Though technically imperfect, she wore the dress for her Islamic marriage ceremony.
“I embedded my story as a Palestinian in the diaspora into this dress,” she said.
Kabouli once dreamed of owning a tatreez garment for her wedding trousseau but could not afford one.
After their parents died, one of her older sisters began working with Inaash to support the family and taught Kabouli the craft.
Now a production supervisor at the organization in Beirut, Kabouli sees echoes of her younger self in the women embroidering in Lebanon’s refugee camps, many of them in the country’s south, which was heavily affected during the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
The colorful embroidery often contrasts with the difficult conditions in the camps, where Palestinian refugees face restrictions on employment and other aspects of daily life. Frequent power cuts force some women to work on rooftops to catch the last daylight and finish pieces so they can be paid, Jaafar said.
Beyond the income, Kabouli said embroidery offers a sense of calm.
She still hopes to visit the homeland her parents left, in what is now Israel.
Until then, tatreez remains her closest connection.
“I don’t feel like I am far away. I keep working on Palestinian heritage, following the cause,” she said. “It connects me to my homeland, especially since we’re deprived of it.”
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