Visual representations of Iris haynei in this story include photographs, digital renderings, and modified scans of archival images by the artist Aline Joana Rüede.
With the arrival of spring, a carpet of flowers blankets the occupied West Bank. Even the lands scarred by Israel’s 400-mile separation barrier burst into color as the blossoms emerge.
In the northeastern village of Faqqu’a, surrounded by Israel’s fence, one flower stands out: a tall iris with large, deep purple petals and sword-shaped leaves. Iris haynei, commonly called the Faqqu’a iris, is a rare and endemic species that grows mostly in the hills around the village it is named after. But its increasingly fragmented populations are threatened by the barrier, settlement expansion, urban development, and uprooting.
For Mufid Jalghoum, who is from Faqqu’a, the iris is a symbol of Palestine as important as the national flag. “It’s unique—it can only be found here,” he said as he knelt to gently caress the petals of a blooming iris. “When I see it, I feel reassured. It comforts the soul.”
In 2016, the Palestinian Authority declared the Faqqu’a iris the national flower of Palestine. Since then, public interest in the plant has grown. Visitors began traveling to Faqqu’a each spring, hoping to glimpse the rare bloom. The village council donated land to establish a botanical garden dedicated to the iris, and the flower has since appeared on stamps, in books, and even in the name of a Faqqu’a’s elementary school soccer team. In Gaza, a square was named after the iris and a sculpture erected to commemorate the national flower, even though most Gazans, besieged for decades, have never seen the iris.
Despite this growing interest, hiking in the hills where the irises grow among olive trees and prickly pears has become increasingly dangerous. Jalghoum has to tread carefully, avoiding areas close to the separation fence that surrounds the village and confines Palestinian residents.
“A Palestinian man was shot there,” Jalghoum said, pointing to a hillside dotted with blooming irises. Since the beginning of the war on Gaza—which has killed more than 58,500 Palestinians, nearly half of whom are women and children, in what human rights groups and United Nations experts have described as a genocide—the West Bank has also witnessed a sharp escalation in Israeli state and settler violence. Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 969 Palestinians there.
“Approaching the fence has become very dangerous,” said Jalghoum. “We’re afraid to go near the areas where the irises are.” In October, Israeli soldiers killed Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old mother of seven and grandmother of 14, while she harvested olives from her family’s orchard in Faqqu’a. Two months later, Israeli forces shot and killed 37-year-old Abdul Qader Khaddour near the fence on village land.
“The iris grows on both sides of the fence,” said Jalghoum. “But on our side, we can get shot if we approach. On the other side, there are military vehicles, and tourists walk freely. The discrimination is very clear.”
For Johann Gedeon, a plant taxonomist and researcher at Bethlehem University, the Faqqu’a iris is one of Palestine’s most striking native plants. It belongs to a group of large-flowered irises known as royal irises, with 33 species endemic to the Middle East and found only in the eastern Mediterranean.
Gedeon explained that royal irises have exceptionally large and beautiful flowers, among the largest in the flora of the Middle East. A plant can have many stems, but each stem produces just one flower.
“There are three types of royal irises in the West Bank,” explained Gedeon. “The Faqqu’a iris was chosen as the national flower because it is an endemic species that is restricted to the Jenin area in the north of the West Bank. We have other endemics, but they are not as marvelous. It’s a really captivating flower—you immediately love it.”
Gedeon’s passion for plants started at the age of 8, when she received her first microscope and was awed by the beauty of each plant’s intricate details. Her early fascination grew into a lifelong dedication to study and protect the flora of Palestine.
Despite its small size, Palestine is rich in botanical diversity. Located at the crossroads of three continents, it features a wide range of ecosystems, biogeographical zones, and varied topography. More than 1,632 types of plants have been identified in the West Bank alone. But expanding Israeli settlements and the appropriation of Palestinian lands and resources are among the factors threatening the region’s biodiversity and ecosystems.
“The biggest threat to both Palestinians, plants, and natural heritage is the Israeli occupation,” said Banan Al-Sheikh, a botanist and national coordinator of Palestinian wild plants for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Al-Sheikh was involved in the nomination of the Faqqu’a iris as the national flower and has monitored the alarming decline of iris populations over the years. The plant is now listed as a threatened species. “To build the separation wall, the Israelis cleared entire areas of vegetation, destroying many iris populations,” he said.
“It was a big loss,” added Jalghoum, who believes the fate of the flower and the people of Faqqu’a are intertwined. The barrier has also cut off local farmers’ access to agricultural lands.
However, the dispossession began much earlier. Palestinian farmers lost most of their lands during the mass expulsions and land appropriations of the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic), the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
“Faqqu’a had 30 thousand dunams [about 7,400 acres]. We lost 20 thousand dunams [4,900 acres during the Nakba],” said Jalghoum. “We still have the official documents proving that these lands belong to us.” Among his records are Ottoman title deeds passed down from his father, as well as notes detailing farmers’ work before Israel confiscated two-thirds of the village’s lands.
After showing us the Faqqu’a iris in bloom, Jalghoum invited us to his home. The walls of his living room were adorned with title deeds and photos of his family alongside the Faqqu’a iris, as if the flowers were also a beloved relative.
Jalghoum mentioned that when the barrier was built, Israeli conservationists tried to relocate iris populations, but most of the plants died. “We shouldn’t take the irises to another area; we need to keep them in their natural environment,” he said. While we sit with him to talk about flowers, the conversation keeps drifting to the catastrophic situation in Palestine—the obliteration of Gaza, the mass displacement, land appropriations, and escalating settler violence in the West Bank.
For Jalghoum, the killing and displacement of Palestinian people are connected to the destruction of their natural heritage. But he believes the iris can tell a story of hope in the face of oppression. “Palestine is not only occupation, killings, arrests, and suffering,” he said. “There is beauty here. There is life.”
Still, the occupation seeps even into references to the flower. Rather than call it the Faqqu’a iris, Israeli botanists have referred to it as the Gilboa iris after the Hebrew and English name for the region’s mountain range. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel even used the iris in its logo.
“The Israeli occupation doesn’t recognize us as a people, so it doesn’t recognize our flower either,” saidJalghoum. “The flower reflects our heritage and represents our identity as Palestinians.”
For Gedeon, the Faqqu’a iris can “strengthen people’s resilience and attachment to this land.” She reflected on certain bees, which shelter from wind and predators in the flower’s petals overnight. “When you love the flower, it finds shelter in your heart, just like the bee,” she said. “We must hold it in our hearts to protect it from extinction.”
Al-Sheikh, for his part, sees the iris as a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness and resilience. The iris produces only one flower at the top of its stem. Unlike most flowers, it doesn’t shed its petals. Instead, they simply dry out.
“It dies standing,” Al-Sheikh said. “It is like the Palestinians raising their heads high.”
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