Diana Buttu is a lawyer who previously served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team and was part of the team that assisted in the successful litigation of the Wall before the International Court of Justice. She frequently comments on Palestine for international news media outlets such as CNN and BBC; is a political analyst for Al Jazeera International and is a regular contributor to The Middle East magazine. She maintains a law practice in Palestine, focusing on international human rights law.
From this author
On January 15, 2025, Qatar announced a ceasefire agreement between the Israeli regime and Hamas. The long-awaited deal, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, promised an end to 15 months of genocidal assault on Gaza, during which Israeli forces killed at least 64,260 Palestinians and reduced much of the strip to rubble.
While the implementation of the ceasefire offers critical relief for Palestinians in Gaza who have been enduring and resisting genocide, skepticism remains over the feasibility of its full implementation. In this roundtable, Al Shabaka analysts Shatha Abdulsamad, Basil Farraj, Talal Abu Rokbeh, and Diana Buttu weigh in on the different aspects of the ceasefire deal and what they mean in the broader context of Israeli settler colonial occupation of Palestine.
Punctuated by the outbreak of the Unity Intifada in May 2021, the trajectory of Palestinian resistance is experiencing a watershed phase marked by new actors and themes. With the effective neutralization of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the deepening geopolitical fragmentation of Palestinians across colonized Palestine and the world, and the global shift to cyberspace, new opportunities — and threats — to Palestinian resistance have emerged.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are bracing for the first general elections to take place in 15 years, while the Palestinian Authority seeks to renew its legitimacy amid shifting regional and global realities.
Trump's efforts to bolster the Palestinian economy in lieu of concrete political action are part of a long history of initiatives designed to forfeit Palestinian rights under the guise of "economic peace."
Trump’s administration and Israel are pressuring Palestinians to accept a disastrous deal in part to cement closer relations with Gulf states against Iran. Al-Shabaka’s Diana Buttu, Osamah Khalil, and Mouin Rabbani examine how US actions work to the detriment of Palestinians, the repercussions of these developments on Hamas-Iran relations, and what Palestinians can do in response.
In our first Palestine Policy Lab session, Al-Shabaka analysts Yara Hawari and Diana Buttu weigh in on the usefulness of the Apartheid framework in the Palestinian context.
A Palestinian leadership vacuum looms due to the ill health of the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, and the frailty of the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO and its main constituent party Fatah.
With the election of Donald Trump, Israel believes it is free to do what it likes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, making a difficult Palestinian leadership transition much harder. Al-Shabaka policy analysts examine different scenarios and propose alternatives ranging from consolidating the state to a struggle for the rights of the Palestinian people as a whole.
How will US-Palestinian relations – such as they are – be affected by the nuclear agreement between leading world powers and Iran In brief:
