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US Sales of Palestinian Keffiyehs Soar, Even as Wearers Targeted

Izzat Hirbawi shows different keffiyeh fabric colorss in a textile factory in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 24,2023. (Reuters)
Izzat Hirbawi shows different keffiyeh fabric colorss in a textile factory in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 24,2023. (Reuters)
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US Sales of Palestinian Keffiyehs Soar, Even as Wearers Targeted

Izzat Hirbawi shows different keffiyeh fabric colorss in a textile factory in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 24,2023. (Reuters)
Izzat Hirbawi shows different keffiyeh fabric colorss in a textile factory in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 24,2023. (Reuters)

A growing number of Americans are donning the keffiyeh, the distinctive patterned scarf that's closely linked with Palestinians, to demand a ceasefire to Israel's attacks on Gaza or to signal their support for Palestinians.

Sales of the scarves have jumped since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, US distributors say, even as keffiyehs have been forcibly removed by security forces at some protests and wearers report being targeted for verbal and physical abuse.

"It was like a light switch. All of a sudden, we had hundreds of people on the website simultaneously and buying whatever they could," said Azar Aghayev, the US distributor for Hirbawi, which opened in 1961 and is the only manufacturer of keffiyehs left in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"In two days, the stock that we had was just gone, and not just gone, it was oversold."

Hirbawi, which has patented its brand, sells scarves internationally via its US and German websites and on Amazon. All 40 variations on the US website, which include many in bright colors as well as the traditional black and white, are sold out, Aghayev said.

Unit sales of keffiyeh scarves have risen 75% in the 56 days between Oct. 7 and Dec. 2 on Amazon.com compared with the previous 56 days, data from e-commerce analytics firm Jungle Scout showed. Searches for "Palestinian scarf for women" rose by 159% in the three months to Dec. 4 compared with the previous three months; searches for "military scarf shemagh,keffiyeh palestine" and "keffiyeh" rose 333%, 75%, and 68%, respectively.

The keffiyeh, with its fishing net pattern, is common throughout the Arab world, with roots dating as far back as 3100 BC. It first came to symbolize Palestinian resistance during the 1936 Arab Revolt against British rule and later became the signature head gear of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.

While Hirbawi is the best-known manufacturer, others include small artisans and global copycats; luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton sold a version in 2021.

US supporters of the Palestinians and Israel have faced threats and attacks since the Middle East conflict began, with Jewish Americans seeing an increase in antisemitism and Muslim Americans an uptick in Islamaphobia.

Hazami Barmada, 38, a former United Nations official who lives in Virginia, wore one recently as she protested outside the White House and in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood in support of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Donning the scarf felt like a "superpower," she said, reconnecting her with her Palestinian heritage and offering a symbolic link to children in Gaza. But she believes it also attracts verbal abuse. "I'm taking a calculated risk," said Barmada.

Security target, Vermont shooting

At New York City's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting in November, one attendee who wore a keffiyeh had it yanked off by a security officer - a moment captured in a Reuters photograph.

The security officer approached protesters at the front of the crowd who had a banner, a Palestinian flag, and one wearing a keffiyeh, and grabbed all three items, taking the keffiyeh from around the neck of the protester, photographer Eduardo Munnoz said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has documented several instances of people targeted for wearing a keffiyeh, from a father assaulted on a Brooklyn playground to a Harvard graduate student who was told she was wearing a "terrorist" scarf.

In the most serious incident, three college students of Palestinian descent - two wearing keffiyehs - were shot in Burlington, Vermont, while taking a walk last month. Hisham Awartani, 20, is paralyzed from the chest down. Authorities have charged a suspect with attempted murder in the shootings and are investigating whether it was a hate-motivated crime.

Tamara Tamimi, the mother of one of the students, Kinnan Abdalhamid, told CBS News last week that she believed they would not have been targeted if they had not been "dressed the way that they were and speaking Arabic."

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group at the center of US campus activism since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. has been encouraging students to “wear your keffiyeh” in solidarity with the students shot in Vermont in the week after the incident.

Still, in Houston, Texas, SJP member Anna Rajagopal said she and other members had not worn their keffiyeh outside spaces they considered friendly to Arabs and Muslims since October, after people waving Israeli flags surrounded a cafe they were in, screaming insults.

"Myself and a friend have been cognizant of taking off our keffiyehs after leaving Palestinian, Arab spaces to be safe," said Rajagopal, 23, a freelance writer who graduated from Rice University in May and is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that advocates for Palestinian independence.

Demand is unabated, though, sellers say. "If we could stock 20,000 keffiyehs, we would have sold them," said Morgan Totah, founder of Handmade Palestine, a group based in the Palestinian city of Ramallah that sells local artisans' wares online.

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Features

Russia Shifts Tactics with Round-the-clock Attacks on Kyiv, Disrupting Daily Life

A resident Nataliia and her daughter Elia, 6, sit at a site of an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Borispil, Ukraine September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
A resident Nataliia and her daughter Elia, 6, sit at a site of an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Borispil, Ukraine September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
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Russia Shifts Tactics with Round-the-clock Attacks on Kyiv, Disrupting Daily Life

A resident Nataliia and her daughter Elia, 6, sit at a site of an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Borispil, Ukraine September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
A resident Nataliia and her daughter Elia, 6, sit at a site of an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Borispil, Ukraine September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer

For much of the war, Russian drone and missile attacks in Kyiv followed a particular rhythm. They almost always came at night.

The warnings would begin on monitoring channels on Telegram in the late evening. They announced drones moving south, missiles being launched, air defenses working. Ukrainian civilians judged whether it was prudent to stay indoors or make for shelter in the metro based on the severity of the threat, The Associated Press said.

Now, Russia has changed tactics with the use of fast-flying, jet-powered drones, and the expectation that daylight brings a return to normal life has been shattered. Since last week, attacks have come day and night, compounding the terror of overnight strikes with the exhaustion of constant daytime disruption.

In Kyiv, the recurring wail of air-raid sirens has become part of daily life. It has interrupted commutes, shopping trips and children’s school, intruded on life’s biggest moments, from weddings to funerals, and, as these attacks always have, taken lives. The relentless alerts are exhausting residents, leaving some wondering how long they can stay.

Air raids are woven into the routine of daily life

An alert sounds. People look at their phones or up at the sky. Moments later, in the distance, the familiar sounds of air defenses intercepting drones resound.

Plumes of smoke can often be seen rising in the distance. Photos quickly spread across Telegram channels, showing where the destruction has occurred.

An hour or two later, another siren echoes.

In malls, banks and other businesses, air-raid protocols require customers and staff to leave when an alert sounds. A bank transaction can be interrupted midconversation; a shopping trip can become a cycle of entering a store, evacuating, returning and evacuating again.

Getting the shopping done has become a nightmare for Volodymyr Bovsunovskyi, who recounts a recent family trip to a mall to buy clothes for his nearly 4-year-old daughter. They had been inside for about 20 minutes when the alert sounded. They rushed out and saw smoke rising nearby.

They never got to purchase the clothes.

“A lot has changed in the last seven days,” he said. Like many residents, he hopes the attacks will relent. But, they have not yet, as Ukraine struggles to find an effective way to counter them.

Train journeys that would normally take a few hours have stretched much longer. In some cases, passengers have found themselves walking for hours through grassy fields after trains stopped on the tracks, carrying their belongings while one air-raid alert followed another.

The same uncertainty extends to getting around the city.

When GPS signals are disrupted to jam drones, using a taxi app becomes an absurd process. A car that appears to be nearby can suddenly appear to be on the other side of the world.

A pickup that seemed imminent suddenly shows an arrival time of thousands of minutes.

Life’s biggest moments are interrupted

One Kyiv couple went ahead with their wedding despite the sirens. On Wednesday morning, when Iryna Baranova, 38, returned home from hair and makeup to finish getting ready, explosions were sounding across the city.

“We heard two explosions, the alarm ended, we got together and went to the registration ceremony," she said, wearing a white satin gown with strands of pearls draped around her neck.

Afterward, she and Evhen Mytsyk walked hand in hand in a botanical garden in the city.

Mytsyk, 40, said the attacks did not diminish the day.

“If you wake up in the morning, you have to make the most of that day, because there might not be another chance," he said. "At a time like this, you appreciate life and the love of your family more, and you give love more openly yourself."

In the same garden, Tetyana Shevchenko meditated inside a small wooden gazebo modeled on a Buddhist prayer space. She has practiced for years, and she says it helps her remain calm even as air raids sound around her.

“When the air raids first started, we couldn’t stand the sound at all. It was very loud, disturbing, depressing," she said. "The body works in a way, it gets used to everything, including nighttime attacks, spending the night on the floor in the corridor, and insomnia.”

Meditation has also helped her stay calm as she navigates the tedium of bureaucracy, made even more difficult by the attacks.

Shevchenko has been trying to obtain documents to recover state funds owed to her mother, who died last year. While she waited in a long line for an appointment on a recent day, an air-raid alert sounded, causing her to miss her slot. She was sent to the back of the line and forced to start the process again.

“In this period of adjustments and grieving all of us are united, united in our suffering,” she said.

As she spoke, a siren blared. Moments later a thud was heard in the distance.

A week of relentless attacks has some considering leaving the city Ivan Datsiv, an IT worker, was in his apartment in Kyiv’s Podil district when a Russian drone tore through the floor on Tuesday, charring the ceilings and walls of his apartment and completely destroying the one next door.

Datsiv tries to joke about it, saying he had been meaning to repaint the walls anyway.

The alerts have become so frequent that he no longer sees the point of repeatedly going to a shelter. At this rate, he said, the only alternative would be to live in the basement.

“The alarms sound constantly,” he said. “You don’t even have time to go down and come back up. It’s just a waste of time running back and forth."

He is thinking of leaving Kyiv. “I’m thinking of living in another city, somewhere quiet and without this danger,” he said.

From the blown-out apartment next door, the view looks down onto a playground and basketball court where children are still playing.

Then a siren sounds again. Minutes later, the white zigzagging trail of an intercepted drone can be seen against the sky.

Bovsunovskyi is also considering leaving the city for a while, hoping to give his family — including his pregnant wife — a chance to rest.

The kindergarten his daughter attends must move the children to a shelter whenever an air-raid alert sounds. The alerts have become so frequent that he now simply picks her up halfway through the day.

“There is no stability,” he said.

Features

Nothing Left: Nepal Flood Survivors Face Loss and Uncertainty

An aerial view shows houses standing amid debris during a helicopter flight from Nuwakot to Rasuwa following the deadly flash floods and mudslides in Nepal, September 3, 2026. (Reuters)
An aerial view shows houses standing amid debris during a helicopter flight from Nuwakot to Rasuwa following the deadly flash floods and mudslides in Nepal, September 3, 2026. (Reuters)
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Nothing Left: Nepal Flood Survivors Face Loss and Uncertainty

An aerial view shows houses standing amid debris during a helicopter flight from Nuwakot to Rasuwa following the deadly flash floods and mudslides in Nepal, September 3, 2026. (Reuters)
An aerial view shows houses standing amid debris during a helicopter flight from Nuwakot to Rasuwa following the deadly flash floods and mudslides in Nepal, September 3, 2026. (Reuters)

In Nepal's flood-ravaged Rasuwa district, Yangee Tamang grapples with grief and uncertainty, days after deadly torrents swept away entire villages, leaving a landscape of mud, rock and debris.

From a helicopter flying up the valley of destruction, the ground below resembles a puzzle with missing pieces. Entire sections of settlements have vanished.

Picturesque villages of green paddy fields and houses sit beside vast chunks of land washed away.

Tamang's house sits on a hillside in Syabrubesi in Rasuwa district, but the flood swept away the settlement below, where her relatives lived and markets were.

"It is all gone, nothing is left. No one is left," Tamang told AFP, after tracing the route of the August 26 destruction by air on Thursday, with roads below washed out.

Rescue teams in Nepal have recovered more than 1,250 bodies, and more than 5,000 are missing, after the gigantic wave triggered by a rock and ice avalanche roared down the China-Nepal border.

What were once busy villages, markets, green hillsides and winding roads in Rasuwa have been transformed into vast stretches of mud, broken rock and debris.

"It wasn't really water, it was gas-like, all black and it moved like boiling water," she said.

"It was all so sudden, it was not possible for anyone to run away."

- 'Hope has died' -

About 100 people are feared trapped in hydropower tunnels.

Tamang's husband is safe, but his workplace, the nearby Chilime Hydropower Project, which was smashed by the flood.

"I don't know what we will do. Nothing is left here for us to live," she said.

The river, still flowing brown, traces a path of destruction, and the enormous amount of debris has changed the shape and course of the waterways.

The floodwaters, carrying huge quantities of mud and rocks, rushed through river valleys with tremendous force.

In narrow gorges between the lush green hills, soil lies exposed where the flood stripped away trees and grass.

Roads that once connected remote communities have been washed away, while bridges lie destroyed or have completely disappeared.

Vehicles remain stranded on washed-out roads along hillsides.

Along the route, many surviving buildings are buried beneath thick layers of mud.

Some remain standing but are left empty, the people gone.

Risang Tamang, another resident, said for those left, the future is bleak.

"It is difficult -- roads are is such a state, so many bridges have been swept away. Now, even if you have money, there is nowhere to buy anything," he told AFP.

"Any hope that we can live here has died."

Features

Ali al-Taher Ridge Emerges as Flashpoint in Israel-Hezbollah War

A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Nabatieh shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the hilltops of the mountainous area of the strategic Ali al-Taher Ridge on August 14, 2026. (Photo by AFP) /
A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Nabatieh shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the hilltops of the mountainous area of the strategic Ali al-Taher Ridge on August 14, 2026. (Photo by AFP) /
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Ali al-Taher Ridge Emerges as Flashpoint in Israel-Hezbollah War

A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Nabatieh shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the hilltops of the mountainous area of the strategic Ali al-Taher Ridge on August 14, 2026. (Photo by AFP) /
A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Nabatieh shows smoke as it rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the hilltops of the mountainous area of the strategic Ali al-Taher Ridge on August 14, 2026. (Photo by AFP) /

The Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, which is named after a Shi'ite Muslim scholar whose shrine sits at its summit, has become one of the most contested pieces of ground in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

The cluster of hills is not especially large. But what it overlooks in southern Lebanon — and what Hezbollah is suspected to have built beneath it — thrust it to the center of the fight between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.

WHERE IS IT?

Located about 15 km (10 miles) from the Israeli border, the Ali al-Taher ridge has a commanding view of a broad sweep of southeastern Lebanon. Israel held it during a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.

After the current war erupted on March 2, Israeli troops pushed deep into southern Lebanon and seized key hilltops, including the historic Beaufort Castle on the ‌route to Ali al-Taher.

In ‌June, Israel's military described the ridge as one of its "primary operational focuses," ‌and ⁠included it in ⁠a map of an expanded, self-declared buffer zone where its troops are operating.

The ridge has effectively become a dividing point between a swathe of Lebanese territory occupied by Israeli troops to the south, and towns to the north that Israel's air force has bombed heavily, including Nabatieh.

WHY IS IT STRATEGIC?

Hezbollah is believed to have built an underground command center and weapons stores within the ridge itself, Lebanese security sources told Reuters in July. At 600 meters above sea level, it granted Hezbollah an advantage in launching short-range missiles and drones towards northern Israel, according to analysts.

Ali al-Taher also connects border areas ⁠in southern Lebanon to the hilly Iqlim al-Tuffah region further north, which has long ‌served as a key logistical and operational base for Hezbollah, the ‌Lebanese security sources said.

The Israeli air force has struck the ridge heavily in recent months.

In June, an Israeli military official, ‌speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Hezbollah fighters were stuck underground without food or water. The ‌Times of Israel, citing a military probe, said on June 20 that one Israeli soldier was killed and 13 wounded during operations to capture a major underground Hezbollah facility beneath the ridge.

Hezbollah has said that Israel has sought to advance but that its fighters still had "full control over the area and are at complete readiness to confront any attempt by the enemy forces to ‌advance or infiltrate."

In July, the Israeli military said it would "not allow Hezbollah terrorists to emerge from the underground terrorist infrastructure and operate in the area or pose ⁠a threat" to Israeli soldiers.

WHAT ⁠IS THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE?

Ali al-Taher lies near Zawtar Al Gharbiyeh, a town from which Israeli troops withdrew in July as part of a US-brokered roadmap that would see Israeli troops gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon as Lebanese troops disarm Hezbollah.

But with Hezbollah refusing to give up its weapons — and Israel saying it won't withdraw until the group disarms — that plan has ground to a halt.

As Israeli elections planned for October draw closer, capturing Ali al-Taher could be an attractive prize for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

"Before the elections, Israel needs a big win in an area that has always been seen as a Hezbollah stronghold," said Andrea Tenenti, a strategic communications expert and former spokesperson for the UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL.

Still, it may prefer a slow siege to avoid Israeli troop casualties, said Hassan Jouni, a Lebanese analyst and retired army general.

"Israel is hesitant to storm Ali al-Taher for fear of casualties, especially at this sensitive moment before elections," Jouni told Reuters.

The deadlock in Lebanon mirrors the wider Middle East standoff — negotiations between the United States and Iran remain stalled, with no breakthrough in sight.