“You cannot succeed by yourself – if it’s only by yourself, it’s not a success.”
After spending five years in an Israeli jail as a political prisoner, Abed was a changed man. Despite being subjected to terrible conditions, during this experience he grew as a person and learnt numerous lessons that would have a significant impact on his life after being released.

The Yalla Project
Abdel-Rahman Kittaneh, nicknamed Abed, is an assistant professor in architecture at Birzeit University, originally from Nablus. Upon his release from prison, he finished his bachelor’s degree, went to England for graduate studies and completed his PhD in architecture at KU Leuven in Belgium. Around the same time he returned to Palestine from Belgium, his brother Bassel was released from prison after having served 15 years behind bars.
In 2019, the two brothers and Abed’s wife Alessandra initiated a communal project aiming to revive the old town of Nablus.
The Yalla Project (TYP) is an initiative that combines profound academic research on socio-spatial issues with social enterprises and community action. It originated from Alessandra and Abed’s academic and professional background. Abed wrote his doctoral thesis about the resilience capacity of people living in the old town of Nablus during direct urban combats while Alessandra is currently finishing her PhD and has experience working for the Palestinian Ministry of Planning.
The old city of Nablus has suffered greatly from Israeli invasions in the past decades. Home to old buildings and relics from the Shechem, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader and Ottoman eras, the city’s cultural heritage has been severely damaged and partly destroyed by the Israeli military. The destruction reached a high point during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when the city was sieged by the Israelis. Today, Nablus is still a stronghold of Palestinian resistance and the Israeli military continues to destructively invade the city on a daily basis, particularly the old town. According to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of Armed Conflict, to which Israel is bound by international humanitarian law, the deliberate destruction of sites of historical or cultural importance accounts to a war crime.
From his research, Abed understood that there are general patterns of resilience that people in the old town of Nablus develop to make a living – despite the continuous waves of violence. By living in a unique urban and social tissue, the people of Nablus have managed to create a distinctive resilience capacity that differs from other cities in the world – even within Palestine. Alessandra and Abed realized that Palestinian urban planning is generic and unlocalized, which can be attributed to a gap in the system: “There is no relationship between academia and practice, and we wanted to initiate [TYP] to fill this gap,” Abed explains.
To bridge this gap, Alessandra, Abed and Bassel created two social enterprises in the old town of Nablus: a café (Antique) and a hostel (Turquoise). Besides offering food, drinks, and accommodation to their guests, the two enterprises can also be booked by organizations to conduct workshops, seminars, or training sessions. All of their work is based on cooperation with other businesses in the old town. For example, if they are hosting a group of tourists in Turquoise, all the products they use for their guests are purchased from the neighborhood. If the guests want sweets, they buy them from the local sweet shops or bakeries. If the guests crave a traditional Palestinian meal like maqluba, they engage and appropriately compensate local housewives. The required vegetables for these meals are purchased from different local supermarkets. Lastly, if the guests ask for breakfast, they are encouraged to visit the neighbors’ breakfast place. Thus, if there is a group of tourists coming to their hostel, the whole neighborhood benefits. “Last weekend we had 30 yoga ladies staying at our hostel, but having breakfast, lunch and dinner, so the whole neighborhood worked.” This is why it’s called a social enterprise.

Inspiring the Revival of the Old Town
Even if Abed and Bassel are not originally from the neighborhood, the local people “want to protect our business because it’s now part of their business”. In fact, as their social enterprises grew a new interest was sparked in the neighborhood. A “new flow of people” started to arrive, leading many to start their own business in the old town and ask the brothers for recommendations on how to connect them with the local market. This is where the academic aspect of TYP comes into play. Through practical projects on the ground, Alessandra and the brothers have access to key insights about the dynamics of urban development in the old town. What makes the city live and develop? How can people efficiently renovate their buildings and reclaim their heritage, and what motivates them to do so? If Abed, Bassel and Alessandra can prove that it is profitable to renovate buildings in the old town, local entrepreneurs will be encouraged to play their part in regenerating the old town of Nablus – once a vivid merchant city.
Through TYP, Alessandra and the brothers have gained vital theoretical and methodological knowledge about urban regeneration in the old town of Nablus. Furthermore, they have encouraged people, many of whom had escaped Nablus during the Israeli military invasions of the Second Intifada, to rebuild their damaged cultural heritage and (re)open their businesses in the old town. Until now, at least nine businesses have opened since the initiation of TYP, all of which were inspired or supported by Abed’s project.
Prison Time as a Vital Turning Point
Abed’s father owns a two-store building on the main street of Nablus. Instead of opening a café and hostel in the old town, Abed could have turned this building into a fantastic and highly profitable restaurant, given its ideal location. He could have avoided all the struggles he would face with TYP. However, he decided not to. “I wanted to do something that is socially impactful.” He already had his full-time job at university, but he was looking to establish something that benefits others.
His social and community-oriented values originated from his time in prison. When asked about his experience in jail, Abed gathers his thoughts, initially struggling to find the right words. “My perspective about life has completely changed.”
Imprisoned while still in university for being part of the Palestinian resistance movement, Abed was a young, self-oriented man. Despite terrible conditions, for him, it was a positive and decisive turning point that would change the course of his life. This is the reason he doesn’t mind being asked about his time in prison and speaks openly about it.
Compared to some of his co-prisoners that did not have a date of release, Abed knew that eventually he would be freed. He had time to read, write, exchange with other inmates, reflect and think about his future as a free man. He started to realize that in life, there is no individual success. “You cannot succeed by yourself – if it’s only by yourself, it’s not a success,” because it does not benefit others. Abed decided to become more giving than taking in order to be influential in his environment and be part of positive social change. And that’s precisely what he did. Together with his brother and Alessandra, who shared his beliefs, he initiated and sustained TYP from his own pocket, benefitting those around him by reviving the old city of Nablus. For him, this was the way to happiness and fulfillment.
Abed’s time in prison also helped him become much more open-minded than he used to be. “I have friends from all sorts of backgrounds, orientations.” Furthermore, upon his release, Abed began to introduce himself as a universal citizen. He doesn’t see himself as an individual, as only a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim, but as a human being who is part of a bigger community. “I totally believe that I belong to the whole universe, and this is what motivates me to work.”

Lack of Support and Bureaucratic Obstacles Overcome by Palestinian Perseverance
A distinctive feature of TYP is that it is completely self-sufficient. It does not depend on funding from municipalities or international aid. Instead, the project was started with $6,000 that Bassel received from the Palestinian Authority as an allowance for his time spent in prison. The payment is meant to help Palestinians reinitiate their lives upon release from jail. This money was invested into renovation of an old warehouse which is now the Antique Café. A generous contractor then agreed to renovate a second building on the other side of the street into the first guesthouse of Turquoise. The renovation of the guesthouse was paid with the revenue of the café.
“That’s why we have [the slogan] your coffee makes a difference.”
Now, they are renovating a third building right next to Turquoise, which will be the second guesthouse of the hostel. This is of course financed by the money generated by the Antique Café and the first Turquoise guesthouse. Abed estimates the total cost of renovation for his buildings at around $150,000. To minimize expenses, they have done a lot of the work themselves. Even Alessandra does it. “You know, in the old town it’s not [common] to see a housewife doing some do-it-yourself-work (…), but she’s doing it in front of them, and they get inspired,” Abed says laughingly. He then refers to their neighbor, a 65-year-old woman who was inspired by Alessandra and built her own café, even building some of the furniture herself.
When TYP started, Abed was profoundly engaged in the groundwork. Living in Nablus at the time, he would commute to Birzeit back and forth every day – a one-hour drive each way -, collect rubble and carry the blocks in the evening after teaching at university during the day. “It was very tough,” Abed says exhaustingly. Nowadays, living closer to the university, he does not go back to Nablus on a daily basis. Bassel is highly active on the ground, while Abed is more responsible for managing, delegating, and communicating. Nonetheless, he is still involved in many aspects of TYP’s work, including writing proposals or improving the website, which he built himself. “In our town it’s not easy. (…) We work a lot to be successful actually, we really invest a lot of time and effort.” Since returning from prison, Abed has only taken three or four days of vacation.
It does not help that there is a lack of support from the government for social entrepreneurs like Abed. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they had to shut down the café for around six months and the hostel for ten, but employees did not receive compensation from the government. “I was paying for them from my salary at university because they need[ed] the money much more than me,” Abed says. His actions speak for his strong belief in TYP, his generosity and his conviction of helping people in need. To reopen, they then had to pay a total amount of around $500 in taxes, electricity bills and rubbish collection fees. At the time of the lockdowns, they had only been working for around six months, so they hadn’t started to make a profit yet.
Another issue Abed faced was the licensing of his social enterprises. Most guesthouses and cafés in the old town are not licensed so as to avoid taxes. Abed, however, wanted to fulfill all legal requirements to license his enterprises. It was an extremely complicated, frustrating, and expensive process. “There is no roadmap,” he remembers. “There is no system to develop the businesses here.” Dozens of random office visits and insufficient communication forced Abed to take leave from work to speed up the process. In the end, it took him three years until his hostel was finally licensed.
Abed would have wished for more encouragement and support, especially because his project aims to renovate the old town and revive the tourism industry, from which the government could also make profits. He believes that municipalities should even subsidize projects like his instead of “chasing after me for [every] penny.” This way, successful businesses will grow, and taxes will increase as well. Abed is convinced that if he did not have his salary from university, he would have shut down his businesses, as the profits were not enough to make a living.
Despite these financial and legal issues, Abed and his team have shown impressive patience and perseverance, which has allowed them to build two self-sufficient and now successful businesses. In addition to paying for rent and the renovation of the buildings, some of the profit generated from their enterprises is invested in their research, which aims to further improve the Yalla Project.

The Issue of Conditional Funding
Instead of encouraging local projects, the Palestinian Authority continues to rely on international funding. Abed believes that some funding is indeed necessary, since Palestinians are still living under occupation and the economy is widely controlled by Israel. However, he stresses the importance of political support and criticizes the funding conditions that are imposed on Palestinians by the international donors. In May 2022, the humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council reported that the EU, the PA’s largest donor, had been delaying a large share of funding committed to Palestine, valued at over €200 million, since 2021. The main reason was that the EU had placed a condition on the release of the money: specific changes to Palestinian school textbooks due to apparent incitement against Israel and anti-Semitic content, despite being in line with UNESCO standards.
The delay eventually came to an end in June 2022, when the EU announced that it would renew its support for the Palestinians with a €224.8 million assistance package, following a vote on the unconditional release of aid to Palestine. Nonetheless, the delay in aid unnecessarily put hundreds of Palestinian lives at risk. Critical assistance for vulnerable Palestinians and support for basic services such as food security or health were severely impacted. The Lutheran World Federation, which owns and operates in occupied East Jerusalem’s Augusta Victoria Hospital as a specialized cancer care center reported about the dire consequences of the funding halt for its patients. According to the institution, at least 500 cancer patients, diagnosed between September 2021 and May 2022, were unable to access life-saving care and treatments, resulting in avoidable deaths.
As international aid conditional on Palestinians changing their education curriculum with Palestinians literally dying due to the funding halt, Abed is curious: “Who questions the curriculum [of] the Israeli education system?” “Nobody questions it at all,” he responds to his own question. Abed says that the Israeli curriculum is outdated, biased and “humiliating for all human race”. According to the Palestine-Israel-Journal, the Israeli educational system is used as a tool to brainwash and distort history to eliminate the national identity of Palestinians living inside Israel, which make up around 20% of the total population.
Working Towards a Free Palestine
In terms of the Palestinian relationship with Israelis, Abed recognizes that it is poor. “We are enemies, but enemies are not enemies forever. Enemies are enemies because of a reason.” This reason is the expulsion, the military occupation and human rights oppression of the Palestinian people. He firmly emphasizes that the Palestinian’s resentment of Israelis has nothing to do with their religion. “In Palestine, we have always been different ethnic groups and religions, and [the Palestinians] are used to this.” The main problem is the human rights situation of the Palestinians. If Palestinians were to live as free human beings and have their basic rights, which includes the right of forcibly displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, “then we can forget about being enemies in the past.” Abed’s hope is to see all of historic Palestine free, as a result of a peaceful transition, and whoever wants to live in a free Palestine, regardless of his or her religion, “ahlan wa sahlan” – you are welcome!
Asked about his realistic view regarding Palestinian liberation, a significant improvement of Palestinian human rights and the return of refugees, Abed enthusiastically answers: “Yeah, I’m very optimistic {…} this will happen in my life, I think”He doesn’t believe that the Zionist State of Israel will be destroyed in a large-scale war. He is convinced it is destined to dissolve by itself due to its inhumane and corrupted structure. Once it dissolves and Palestine is free, some of the present-day Israelis may stay and become part of the Palestinian society, and some will go back to their homelands. He compares this to the Western Crusaders, many of whom decided to stay in Palestine after their defeat in the late 13th century, despite decades of mistreatment of the local population. Their descendants are still living here, today.
To underline his argument, he uses the Ottoman Empire as comparison. The Ottoman Empire, one of the mightiest and longest-lasting dynasties in world history, eventually dissolved. Although this followed its defeat in World War I, the main causes of its decline were mostly internal divisions and the rise of nationalist movements. Similarly, in Israel, the failure of compiling a functioning government and the use of an apartheid-like system that suppresses Palestinians who demand independence and are increasingly gaining international support, could eventually lead to the dissolution of this malfunctioning state of Israel, according to Abed. The recent protests, where hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets over the planned judicial overhaul, further indicate the increasing internal division within Israeli society.
An Inspirational Transition
Abed has played a vital role in reviving the neglected and damaged old town of Nablus and helping others reclaim their cultural heritage. Despite all kinds of challenges, he and his team remained resilient, set up the self-sufficient TYP from their own pockets and ensured its success through constant hard work and the innovative use of praxis-oriented academic research. TYP has created jobs for young people and strengthened the local population’s bond with the old town. By involving, benefitting and inspiring various local actors, TYP has also managed to counter internal fragmentation and antagonism, which constitutes a serious problem in Palestinian society. Alessandra, Bassel and Abed have nourished a real community and created a social environment that is quite unique.
Abed wisely used the time he spent in prison. He developed from a rather selfish and individualistic prisoner to a community-oriented, social, and open-minded hard-worker, which led him to fight for positive social change and become one of Nablus’ pioneers in the tourism industry. His transition embodies one of the many Palestinian success stories, which has also been documented in an article by The Guardian. By choosing a peaceful approach to resist the occupation – reviving and preserving Palestinian cultural heritage – Abed’s transitional story can be an inspiration to many Palestinians to keep faith and fight for the liberation of Palestine and the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.
*This interview was conducted in May 2022.