Mohammed el-Kurd (, born 15 May 1998) is a Palestinian writer and poet from Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Prior to the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, he was pursuing a master's degree in the United States, but returned to protest Israel's eviction of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem (see Sheikh Jarrah controversy). He has gained prominence for his description of Palestinians' lives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; el-Kurd has referred to the evictions as a form of ethnic cleansing, and has also accused Israel of imposing apartheid-style laws and regulations onto Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Early life and education
El-Kurd was born into a family of Palestinian Muslims in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, on 15 May 1998. In 2009, part of his family's home in Sheikh Jarrah was seized by Israeli settlers. He was the main subject of the 2013 documentary film My Neighbourhood by Julia Bacha and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi. He had emigrated to the United States and settled in New York to pursue higher education, but returned to East Jerusalem during the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.
Return to East Jerusalem (2021)
Since his return to the Israeli-occupied West Bank amidst the Sheikh Jarrah controversy, El-Kurd has been documenting and speaking out against Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem. He and his twin sister, Muna el-Kurd, began campaigning to raise global awareness on Israeli policies in East Jerusalem through various social media channels. In combination, the twins have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and millions of followers on Instagram. While Muna's posts are usually in Arabic, Mohammed frequently posts in English to cater to a Western audience.
On 6 June 2021, Mohammed and Muna were both detained by Israel Police; they were later released on the same day after being detained for several hours. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Mohammed appeared on American television channels CNN, MSNBC, and CBSN.
In 2021, Mohammed and Muna were named on TIME 100 most influential people in the world.
On 3 August 2023, he was announced to have been employed as the Culture Editor for Mondoweiss, a website which covers the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Published works
Since 2021, el-Kurd has been the Palestine correspondent for The Nation.
His poetry and articles are in English, written on the themes of dispossession, ethnic cleansing, systemic and structural violence, settler colonialism, Islamophobia, and gender roles.
Controversy
El-Kurd has been accused of using antisemitic tropes in his poetry and social media. He has compared Israel to the Nazi regime and wrote in his poetry of Zionists harvesting Palestinian organs to "feed their warriors our own." El-Kurd responded to criticism by clarifying he was referring to the 2009 controversy in which an Israeli doctor admitted to harvesting organs from Palestinian corpses without the permission of their families. El-Kurd said, “It’s a metaphor, it’s not something I literally believe. I’m just now realizing that they actually think, or are pretending to think for purposes of exaggeration, that I actually believe Israelis eat Palestinian organs.... At first it was comical, but now it seems very sinister. The line is about the practice of withholding Palestinian bodies and [...] exploiting the bodies in ways that have been documented and are widely discussed." His scheduled speaking appearances have generated controversy and in several cases his speaking invitations have been rescinded.
