Palestine Trivia
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49 free Palestine trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Palestine trivia quiz covers the West Bank, Gaza and the wider region from the first written mention by Herodotus to the present day. It asks about the land itself: the lowest city on Earth, the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, the highest peak in the Hebron hills, the olive trees that cover nearly half of the country's farmland, and the desert valley near Jericho where a monastery clings to a cliff. A large part of the quiz is about culture and daily life: musakhan and maqluba, the Nablus dessert that spread across the Arab world, sage tea and Turkish coffee, the dabke danced at weddings, the Arab Idol winner from Gaza, the films Paradise Now and Omar, the national football stadium in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans of Mount Gerizim. The history questions stick to well-established facts: the meaning of the name, the British Mandate, the 1948 war, the founding of the PLO, the Oslo Accords, the 1988 declaration of independence and the 2012 UN General Assembly vote. Questions range from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on the State of Palestine, the Palestine region and Palestinian cuisine.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which black-and-white checkered headdress, worn by Yasser Arafat, became a symbol of Palestinian identity?
Keffiyeh
The keffiyeh spread during the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, when rebel leaders ordered all men to wear it so the authorities couldn't pick out the fighters.
Q 02Which city serves as the de facto administrative centre of the Palestinian government?
Ramallah
Ramallah's Mukataa compound, where Israeli forces confined Yasser Arafat for more than two and a half years, became his burial place in 2004.
Q 03Which ancient manuscripts did Bedouin shepherds find in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank?
Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1954 four Dead Sea Scrolls were offered for sale in a Wall Street Journal advertisement, and Yigael Yadin secretly bought them for Israel through a middleman.
Q 04Which Greek historian gave the earliest surviving written use of 'Palestine' as a region, in the 5th century BCE?
Herodotus
Herodotus wrote Palaistine; after crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Rome renamed its province of Judaea as Syria Palaestina.
Q 05Which Palestinian-American literary critic wrote Orientalism, the influential 1978 study of how the West portrayed the East?
Edward Said
Edward Said, an accomplished pianist, co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with conductor Daniel Barenboim in 1999, uniting young Israeli and Arab musicians.
Q 06Which West Bank city, lying about 250 metres below sea level, is among the lowest cities on Earth?
Jericho
Jericho grew beside the copious spring of 'Ain es-Sultan, and by about 8000 BCE its settlers had built a massive wall and tower around the town.
Q 07Which tree do many Palestinians see as a symbol of their connection to the land?
Olive
Olive: at the UN in 1974, Yasser Arafat told delegates he had come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun, and urged them not to let the branch fall.
Q 08Which street artist opened the Walled Off Hotel in 2017, directly facing Israel's separation barrier?
Banksy
Banksy described it as having 'the worst view of any hotel in the world'; it closed after the 7 October 2023 attacks and reopened in December 2025.
Q 09What do Palestinians call the mass displacement and dispossession they suffered during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
The Nakba
The Nakba means 'catastrophe' in Arabic, and in December 1948 the UN General Assembly's Resolution 194 called for the refugees' return and compensation.
Q 10Which West Bank desert gorge is home to the cliff-hanging Monastery of St George?
Wadi Qelt
Wadi Qelt's Monastery of St George was destroyed by the Persians in 614, abandoned after the Crusaders left, and restored by Greek monks in the late 19th century.
Q 11Which fruit became a Palestinian protest symbol, used in place of the national flag?
Watermelon
Watermelon: when Israeli authorities shut an art gallery in 1980, an officer warned the artists that even a watermelon painted in the flag's colours would be confiscated.
Q 12Which 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild pledged support for 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine?
Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration was written into the League of Nations' 1922 Mandate for Palestine, turning a wartime pledge into a duty of the ruling mandatory power.
Q 13After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which country occupied and later annexed the West Bank?
Transjordan
Q 21Which secular party, co-founded by Yasser Arafat, led the Palestinian Authority from its creation in 1994?
Fatah
Fatah lost its parliamentary majority to Hamas in 2006, and in June 2007 Hamas fighters took complete control of the Gaza Strip.
Q 22Who became president of the State of Palestine in 2005?
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas's presidential term expired in 2009, yet in 2021 he postponed what would have been the first national elections in 15 years.
Q 23Which West Bank city is home to the Cave of the Patriarchs, believed to hold the tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?
Hebron
Hebron was split by the 1997 Hebron Protocol, which handed most of the city to Palestinian control while Israeli authorities kept the rest.
Transjordan, renamed Jordan in 1949, annexed the West Bank in 1950, but in 1988 Jordan severed its ties with the territory and gave up its claim.
Q 14Where did the PLO move its headquarters after leaving Beirut in 1982?
Tunis
Tunis: in October 1985 Israeli jets struck PLO headquarters near the city, and the UN Security Council condemned the raid as armed aggression against Tunisia.
Q 15Which Palestinian poet wrote the 1988 declaration proclaiming the State of Palestine?
Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish joined the PLO's executive committee in 1987 but resigned in 1993 in opposition to the Oslo Accords.
Q 16Which Israeli politician's September 2000 visit to the Temple Mount was followed by riots that grew into the Second Intifada?
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon, long a champion of Israeli settlements, became prime minister in 2001 and in 2005 pulled Israeli settlers and troops out of the Gaza Strip.
Q 17Which Israeli prime minister signed the Oslo II Accord with Yasser Arafat in 1995?
Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated weeks later, in November 1995, by Yigal Amir, an Israeli who opposed the Oslo Accords on religious grounds.
Q 18Which UN agency, created in 1949, runs schools and health clinics for Palestinian refugees?
UNRWA
UNRWA was meant as a temporary relief agency, but because no political solution for the refugees came, its mandate grew into education and health care.
Q 19On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly upgraded Palestine to what status?
Non-member observer state
After gaining non-member observer state status, Palestine joined the International Criminal Court in 2015; Israel is not a party to the court and disputes its jurisdiction.
Q 20In May 2024, which EU country recognised the State of Palestine jointly with Spain and Norway?
Ireland
Ireland's recognition was announced jointly with Spain and Norway, and Israel responded by recalling its ambassadors to all three countries for consultations.
Q 24Which court ruled in a 2004 advisory opinion that Israel's West Bank barrier breaks international law?
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice said Israel must stop building the barrier, dismantle its parts inside occupied territory and pay reparation.
Q 25In which South American country does Club Deportivo Palestino, founded by Palestinian immigrants in 1920, play top-flight football?
Chile
Chile's football federation banned Palestino's shirts and fined the club in 2014, after the number 1 was reshaped into a map of pre-1948 Palestine.
Q 26Which West Bank city, funded largely by Qatar, was the first planned city built for Palestinians?
Rawabi
Rawabi's first 650 apartments were sold but stood empty for over a year while water talks stalled, until Israel agreed to a water connection in 2015.
Q 27Which tiny religious community regards Mount Gerizim, in the West Bank, as its holiest site?
Samaritans
Samaritans often marry within their extended families, so to widen a small gene pool some men have been allowed to marry women from outside the community.
Q 28Which church did Palestinian gunmen shelter in during a 39-day Israeli siege in 2002?
Church of the Nativity
The Church of the Nativity standoff ended when 13 of the wanted men were flown into exile in Europe and 26 others were sent to Gaza.
Q 29What is the Arabic name for Palestinian embroidery, added to UNESCO's heritage list in 2021?
Tatreez
Tatreez turned political in the First Intifada: with the Palestinian flag banned in public, women stitched its colours and symbols into 'intifada dresses'.
Q 30Which line dance, danced to the mijwiz and tablah, is a fixture of Palestinian weddings?
Dabke
Dabke's stamping, legend says, began as roof repair: villagers linked hands in a line and stomped a cracked mud roof back into place.