Radio alHaraRadio alHara

Five people started Radio alHara in March 2020, in the first weeks of the pandemic, working between Bethlehem, Ramallah and Amman: the architect brothers Elias and Yousef Anastas, the artist Yazan Khalili, and Saeed Abu-Jaber and Mothanna Hussein of the design studio Turbo. Al-hara means the neighbourhood, which is what the station was at first — a player, a chatroom and whoever their friends could persuade to send something in. It spread by word of mouth, friends and then friends of friends.

Nothing about the day is fixed: contributors scattered far past Palestine post shows in, and live sets sit beside archive episodes without ceremony — spiritual jazz, funk, ambient, field recordings. Fil Mishmish, a 72-hour broadcast against the annexation plan in June 2020, brought the wider audience. The Sonic Liberation Front followed in 2021 and has kept going since.