PALESTINIAN life and culture is to be celebrated by a new festival in Oxford this summer.

The Palestine Unlocked festival will feature film screenings, a comedy evening, storytelling and a photography competition among other things.

It will run from Thursday, June 4, until Sunday, June 21, and has been backed by former Oxford Brookes Gaza Scholar Hassan Al Hallaq, whose family were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza last July.

The Oxford Mail backed an appeal by Oxford Brookes to raise funds to help Mr Al Hallaq return to the United Kingdom if he chooses to do so in the future.

Oxford Brookes Gaza Scholars are Palestinian students who are given a bursary to spend a year studying at the university.

The festival will open with a screening of The Great Book Robbery, a Dutch film about the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people.

Festival organising committee chairman Rev Canon Andrew Bunch said: “The aim of the festival is to celebrate the culture of the people of Palestine as well as to bring home the realities of Palestinian life under occupation today.

“We hope to engage people who may shy away from the subject of Palestine or who remain unaware of what is going on there.

“We also want to highlight valuable ongoing Oxford-Palestine links, for example in health care, and the Oxford Ramallah Friendship Association, which deserves to be more widely known.”

The association is a charity which works to build grassroots links between civil society groups and individuals in Oxford and the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

The festival was the brainchild of Oxford academic Dr Tim Lusty, who founded the Oxfam Health Unit.

Dr Lusty died from cancer in January but had already set up a planning group for the festival.

Oxford City Council board member for culture and communities Christine Simm said she supported the festival.She said: “It sounds tremendous and I hope that lots of people go along to support it. It will make people aware of issues surrounding Palestine and I am very keen to support it.“I am sure it will bring these issues to attention and I will certainly be going along to support.”

A number of prominent activists and academics will speak at events during the festival, such as Dr Ghada Karmi, the author of Return: A Palestine Memoir and Norwegian emergency doctor and humanitarian Dr Mads Gilbert.

But Oxfordshire County Council deputy leader Rodney Rose said the festival must not inflame political tensions.

He said: I would hope we would welcome other cultures here, provided they are doing a festival that is for their culture rather than against somebody else’s.

“If it would lead to anti-Israeli sentiment then that would be an absolute no-no.

“So long as it is not anti-Semitic I would support it.”

For more information visit palestineunlocked.com