Harun Hashim Rashid also spelt Haroun Hashem Rasheed was born in Gaza in 1927. He witnessed, as a child, British soldiers demolishing his and his neighbors’ homes in reprisal against Palestinian rebels, an incident which left a deep mark on him as a poet. After obtaining a Higher Teacher Training Diploma from Gaza College, he worked as a teacher until 1954. He then became director of Sawt al-Arab broadcasting station in the district of Gaza and following the fall of Gaza to the Israelis in 1967, he was harassed by the Israeli occupation forces and was eventually compelled to leave the region. He worked in Cairo, as representative of Palestine at the League of Arab States, and passed away in May 2002.
His poetry is among those contemporary writings most committed to the Palestinian cause; he describes in his simple, direct, balanced, and highly expressive verse the plight of Palestinians uprooted from their homes, their inner torment, and the deep feelings of loss and alienation that they have known throughout the years.The appearance in 1954 of his first collection, With the Strangers, was a great event in the history of Palestinian poetry, as he was perhaps the first poet to address himself to the question of the physical and spiritual alienation of the Palestinians.
During his life, Rashid issued nearly twenty poetry collections, including "strangers" in 1954, "The Return of Strangers" in 1956, "Gaza in the Line of Fire", and "Until our people return" 1965, "Ship of Wrath" 1968, and "The Storm Journey" 1969, "Fedayeen" 1970, "Lover's Notebook" 1980, "Diaries of Resilience and Sadness" 1983, "Stone Revolution" 1991, "Birds of Paradise" 1998, "Returnees" and others. Many Arab artists sang his poems, led by Fayrouz, Faida Kamel, Muhammad Fawzi, Karem Mahmoud, Muhammad Qandil, Muhammad Abdo, Talal Maddah, and others.
He also wrote four poetry plays, in which he starred on the stage in Cairo, "The Question", starring Karam Mutawa and Suhair Al Morshidi. After the 1973 War, he wrote the play "The Fall of Barlev" and was presented on the National Theater in Cairo in 1974, and the play "Birds of Thorns". Rasheed has also written a novel, Years of the Suffering (1971), and several studies on poetry and politics.
