Everything Palestinian, kept with its sources.

01

Why this archive

The record of Palestine is scattered across the world: in libraries and archives abroad, on news sites, in family albums, and on social platforms owned by companies that can take it down at any time. A photograph, a testimony or the name of a village can disappear with one decision made somewhere else.

We gather it in one place, with its sources, and keep our own copy of what we are allowed to keep, so it stays when the original goes. And we tell it, so that anyone who comes can see it, learn from it and understand it.

02

What it will hold

Everything Palestinian, each piece connected to the others:

• events, from the great turning points to the daily record;
• places: every city, town, village and camp by its Palestinian name, the villages emptied in 1948 among them;
• people: those who made and lived its history;
• culture: food, music, crafts, dress, literature and everyday life;
• evidence: documents, photographs, recordings and films, each with its source.

And ways to see it: a map through time; landmarks in 3D, as they looked across the years; films; later, an assistant that answers questions from the archive and always shows its sources; and an open foundation, an interface others can build on. The map you see is the first piece of that.

1. Now

   The map through time, the core events with their sources, photographs and Arabic, and the first landmarks in 3D.

2. Next

   More events, and one period in depth; people and culture; landmarks made from real references; On This Day.

3. Later

   The community adding what is missing and verifying it, under guidelines set with historians and partners; films; the assistant; an open interface for others.

03

What is here now

Counted from what is published, as this page is read. Last change published: 2026-09-18.

events

19

from 1898 to 2023; 0 of them in Arabic too

places

0

0 with a position on the map

photographs

2

each with its licence and credit

people

5

each with their sources, and their part in events

traditions

0

food, music, crafts and dress, where each is practised

sources cited

23

each passage cited where it is in its source

What is missing, honestly

• Few events yet in: Before British rule, British rule, The Nakba, After the Nakba, The 1967 occupation, Intifada and Oslo.
• No daily record yet: zooming into a year shows little.
• No video yet.
• People and culture have barely begun: 5 people and 0 traditions so far.
• The places’ positions come from open data (Wikidata) and are marked approximate until they are reviewed.
• The events have not yet been reviewed by historians (below), and their Arabic is the agent’s translation.

04

How we work

An event is not the articles about it

An event is something that happened, once. A source is a document, article, photograph or testimony about it. Many sources can tell one event; that makes them several accounts, not several events, and not proof that they agree. A statement published on a United Nations site still belongs to whoever made it.

Every statement rests on a source

Each chapter of an event cites the passage it rests on, where that passage is in its source, and which version of the source we read. We start from primary sources, such as United Nations resolutions and reports, the International Court of Justice and OCHA’s figures, and from specialist references such as the Institute for Palestine Studies’ encyclopedia. Numbers are given with who gave them.

Dates say what we know

An exact day, a month, a year and a stretch of time stay distinct: an event known only to its year is never given a day. A day of remembrance is recorded apart from the event: Nakba Day falls on 15 May, which does not make the Nakba a single day.

Places keep their names

Places are named by their original Palestinian names, in Arabic and in English. Each is a record of its own, within its district, with the events that happened there.

What shows first

Every event has an editorial weight from 0 to 100, with a written reason, which places it in one of four levels: turning points, defining moments, notable events and the daily record. The map shows the twelve weightiest events for the time and place chosen; the others come up as you zoom in. Weight is a decision about what to show first. It is not a measure of any life or of anyone’s suffering. The map

Pictures, only with permission

We add a photograph or a film only when its licence is clear: in the public domain, or under an open licence shown with its credit. Each is kept on our servers with its credit, its licence, a link to the original, and a fingerprint (SHA-256) that shows if it ever changes. We never make up a portrait, a document or a scene and present it as real.

Maps and 3D, honestly

The map’s layers, such as the settlements, the wall and Gaza’s closed areas, are drawn from dated sources, and only from the date their data describes. The landmarks in 3D are honest visualisations, not reconstructions: the layout, the kind of building and roughly how much of it are sourced, the details are representative, and each version says how close to the place it can be.

Nothing is overwritten

A correction is a new version of a record; the earlier one is kept in its history. A record that is withdrawn keeps its history too. The data we gather is kept as one collection, in order, so the archive can always be rebuilt from it.

05

The part AI plays

An AI agent works on the archive. It researches events from the sources above, drafts their text with its citations, and translates it into Arabic. What it makes is marked as its work and enters review: nothing it proposes publishes itself. It must never invent a source, a date, a quotation or an image; where a source cannot be read, the event waits.

The events here were researched by the agent and published by the archive’s founder for this pilot. They have not yet been reviewed by historians; that is the next step. Arabic translated by the agent says so on its page, and quotations are taken from their Arabic originals where they exist.

06

Who we need

History needs historians. Today this archive is one person’s effort. We want to work with historians, archivists and researchers who know how history is recorded: to set how each kind of record is gathered, sourced and reviewed, and to review what is already here.

And we hope it becomes a free, shared effort: translators, photographers, families with their albums and their stories, 3D artists and developers.

The community will fill it in

Much of what is missing, the daily record above all, will come from people themselves. Later we will build a way for anyone to add what they know or hold (an event, a photograph, a testimony, a family’s story) and a way for the community to verify it.

What is added will pass strict guidelines and verification steps, set with our historians and partners: what it must show and cite, who checks it and how, and what happens when accounts disagree, which stays visible rather than hidden. Nothing is published until it has passed them.

07

Support the project

What you see is a proof of concept: the map, the timeline, the first events, places, people and landmarks, gathered with AI help from cited sources and not yet checked by historians. To become a lasting, reviewed archive it needs funding: for historians and editors to review what is here and set the method, for translation, for landmarks drawn from research, and for the servers that keep it.

If you can help, as a funder, an institution or a volunteer, write to us.

Write to omar.y.altawil@gmail.com.

08

If something is wrong

Tell us: the page, the statement, and a source that shows what is right (and a way to reach you, if you would like a reply). The founder reads every report. A correction is published as a new version, and the old one stays in the record’s history.

Write to omar.y.altawil@gmail.com.