(1938-1987)

Palestinian cartoonist, al-Ali was born in the village of Skajara in the Galilee in 1938. His family fled Palestine to Lebanon during the first Arab-Jewish war. He grew up in Ein al-Hilwe refugee camp in Saida, Lebanon.

Al-Ali published his first drawings in the Lebanese newspaper all-Muharrer in the early 1970s. Later he worked for al-Watan newspaper in Kuwait. He returned to Lebanon in the mid 1970s, and worked for various newspapers. In 1982 he traveled back to Kuwait in 1982 to work for al-Qabas, transferred then to that paper's newspaper London office.

He was shot by an assassin's bullet on 22 July 1987 in London, and died on 29 August.

He created the now famous cartoon character Handala, with his back to the world, helplessly watching the Palestine under occupation.