Palestinians, Syrians remember Elias Khoury, a writer of principles

Palestinians and Syrians have paid tribute to the renowned novelist Elias Khoury following his death on Sunday, many of them recalling his principled and supportive stance on both countries.

Khoury was highly regarded as one of Lebanon’s most well-known writers and was loved for raising awareness about the plight of Palestinians, something reflected in his writing, as well as the suffering of Syrians at the hands of Bashar Al-Assad's regime.

His work touched on themes of war, exile, and belonging and was translated into many languages including French, German, English, and Spanish, with tributes to him and his work awash on social media.

"Elias Khoury was a staunch advocate for Palestine, contributing to the struggle nationally and intellectually," the Institute for Palestine Studies wrote in a statement.

"He wrote numerous articles and studies emphasizing the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli Occupation and confront colonialism," the statement continued.

The group noted that he had edited several newspapers during his career - along with teaching and paid "exceptional attention" to the plight of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

Palestinian statesperson Dr Hanan Ashrawi also weighed in, calling Khoury an "intellectual giant whose commitment to the cause of Palestine and its people has given us a voice and a platform of outstanding significance".

One social media user wrote: "The loss of Elias Khoury is huge for the literary world, the Palestinian resistance, for storytelling but his novels and words and his love for Palestine are forever."

Others, including friends and colleagues of Khoury, described him as humble, thoughtful, generous, and someone who loved telling stories and talking to people.

"A resistance fighter who clung onto the Palestinian cause and resisted the ongoing ‘defeat’ for the sake of the future and our dreams…a leftist revolutionary who supported thee Syriana uprising and took it as a duty against everyone who insisted on standing with a regime of death and torture," another wrote on X.

One of his best-known novels, "Gate of the Sun", tells the story of Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes in 1948 during the creation of the state of Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes by Zionist militias and the newly-established Israeli army in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe in Arabic.

The novel was made into a film by Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah.

Despite illness in recent years, Khoury continued to write and denounced the current ongoing war on Gaza.

On 16 July, he published an article titled 'A Year of Pain' recounting his time bedridden in hospital and enduring "a life filled with pain, which stops only to herald in more pain".

He ended his piece by alluding to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, which by then had raged on for more than nine months.