Tahani Abu Daqqa is a Palestinian entrepreneur and former Palestinian Minister of Youth, Sport, and Culture. She is the founder of Gaza Life Power, an organization working on renewable energy and community development in Palestine. She is a Gaza War survivor and has been displaced since April 2024.

For more than four decades, Tahani Abu Daqqa has been involved in building women’s cooperatives and developing local economic and social infrastructure in Gaza under conditions of occupation, blockade, and repeated military escalation.

In 2023, she completed a major solar energy project intended to provide more stable electricity to parts of Gaza. Within the first week after October 7, this installation was destroyed.

This Candid Conversation on Palestine, Israel & Europe offers a detailed, first-hand perspective on Gaza - not only as a place of conflict, but as a society shaped by decades of resilience, organizing, and negotiation. It also outlines concrete reflections on what a constructive European role could look like, and why lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians is ultimately interdependent.

DISCLAIMER: This episode was recorded on November 26, 2025, in Bulgaria.

About EPICON:

Palestinian and Israeli civil society still has agency—agency over shaping the current realities and the future of Palestine and Israel. Against all odds, courageous individuals from both sides are choosing to engage, to defy political stagnation, and to present concrete ideas and plans for a peaceful solution.

These individuals insist that peace is not simply a diplomatic agreement; it must be built on the ground, through dialogue, human connection, and shared commitment. They claim that it is the responsibility of political leaders to listen and to translate their insights and proposals into decision-making and real action.

Our Palestinian and Israeli guests on this podcast include former prisoners and soldiers, relatives of hostages, leading peace activists and mediators, scholars, legal experts, and more—voices rarely heard in Europe. They bring forward-thinking, pragmatic, and actionable ideas in response to a central question: What can Europe do?

Hosted by Meryem-Lyn Oral

Watch the Podcast here

Recorded at Publix Berlin - with special thanks to Frederic Gaillard for his support.

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EPICON is implemented by the Candid Foundation gGmbH with the financial support of the European Union.