Al-Hayat al-Jadida

Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Arabic: الحياة الجديدة, lit. “The New Life”) is the official or semi-official daily newspaper aligned with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian official-media system. The newspaper was first issued on 10 November 1994, initially as a weekly before later becoming a daily, with Hafez al-Barghouti as editor and Nabil Amro as director. It is headquartered in the Ramallah/al-Bireh area and operates in Arabic as a principal print and digital platform for articulating Palestinian Authority, PLO and presidency-aligned political messaging.

Media assets

Publishing: Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the Arabic-language PA-aligned official daily newspaper, distributed in print primarily across the West Bank and accessible through its website and digital channels. Print distribution in the Gaza Strip has been historically constrained following the 2007 Fatah-Hamas political schism, including the 2019 Hamas attorney-general request to ban distribution of the newspaper in Gaza

Ownership and governance

Al-Hayat al-Jadida operates as the principal PA-aligned official daily newspaper under the Palestinian official-media structure. According to SMM-retained expert sources and local journalists and media analysts consulted between December 2023 and April 2024, the newspaper is directly managed and overseen through official Palestinian Authority and PLO-linked media arrangements, with no publicly accessible framework outlining independent appointment procedures or editorial governance.

Current public sources identify Mahmoud Abu Al-Hija, also rendered Mahmoud Abu al-Hayja, as General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Hayat al-Jadida. Earlier references to Arif or Aref Hijjawi as editor-in-chief should be treated as outdated. Majed al-Rimawi, who had historically served as director-general, died in May 2021 and should not be presented as a continuing or current-cycle incumbent. Public sources also identify Minister Ahmad Assaf, the General Supervisor of Palestinian Official Media, as Chair of the Board of Al-Hayat al-Jadida and the National Printing Press. This governance structure links the newspaper directly to the wider PA official-media apparatus.

The wider cycle context for Al-Hayat al-Jadida governance was shaped by President Abbas’s appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh on 26 April 2025 as Deputy Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and Deputy President of the State of Palestine, the continuation of Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in office since 31 March 2024, and the 1 January 2025 Palestinian Authority order suspending Al Jazeera broadcasts in the West Bank. No structural restructuring introducing editorial independence or arm’s-length governance for Al-Hayat al-Jadida was identified during the 2025/26 SMM review.

Source of funding and budget

Al-Hayat al-Jadida is funded through Palestinian official-media and PA/PLO-linked funding arrangements. According to SMM-retained expert sources and local journalists and media analysts consulted between December 2023 and April 2024, the newspaper does not operate on significant independent commercial or advertising revenue and depends on official funding support.

No standalone 2025/26 allocation for Al-Hayat al-Jadida was identified in publicly disclosed Palestinian Authority budget documentation reviewed by SMM during the cycle, and no independent audited disclosure or budget breakdown for the newspaper’s operations has been made available. This absence of independent audited disclosure for the newspaper’s operations continued through the SMM 2025/26 review and is consistent with the broader opacity of Palestinian official-media financial arrangements.

Editorial independence

Al-Hayat al-Jadida operates under strict editorial alignment with the Palestinian Authority and the official-media system. According to SMM-retained expert sources and local and international media analysts consulted during prior cycles, the publication functions as a principal print platform for PA and presidency-aligned messaging, with editorial decisions reflecting and amplifying official PA positions and routinely sidelining dissenting voices.

The newspaper has also been a target of political pressure in Gaza. In 2019, Hamas authorities in Gaza sought to ban its distribution, accusing the newspaper of incitement and inflammatory coverage; press-freedom organisations including CPJ and MADA treated the episode as a press-freedom concern and part of the wider Fatah-Hamas media conflict.

The 2025/26 cycle did not produce any structural editorial reform for Al-Hayat al-Jadida: no statutory editorial-independence guarantee, internal editorial charter, independent regulatory body or external oversight mechanism monitoring its compliance with journalistic standards was identified.

AI and digital policy

Al-Hayat al-Jadida has not published a public-facing institutional AI governance policy. The main digital and technical modernisation reference points for the newspaper are its website, PDF archive, online edition and social-media presence operated under Palestinian official-media supervision. No cycle-window AI-tool deployment or generative-AI editorial integration was identified at Al-Hayat al-Jadida during the SMM 2025/26 review, and no public framework governing the use of generative AI or AI-enabled systems in editorial decision-making, verification, newsroom production, archiving, distribution or audience-facing content has been published.

Classification rationale

Al-Hayat al-Jadida remains classified as State-Controlled (SC) for the 2026 cycle. The newspaper operates within the Palestinian Authority’s official-media system with board-level oversight linked to the General Supervisor of Official Media (Minister Ahmad Assaf serving as Chair of the Board of Al-Hayat al-Jadida and the National Printing Press), current public sources identifying Mahmoud Abu Al-Hija as General Manager and Editor-in-Chief, and no publicly accessible framework establishing arm’s-length appointment procedures or editorial governance; there is no statutory editorial-independence guarantee, independent oversight body or editorial firewall protecting the newspaper’s output from political or executive direction. The newspaper is funded through PA/PLO-linked official-media funding arrangements with no significant independent commercial revenue identified, no standalone 2025/26 allocation identified in publicly disclosed PA budget documentation, and no audited public financial disclosure available. The 2025/26 cycle produced no governance, funding or editorial reform sufficient to move Al-Hayat al-Jadida out of the SC category: the newspaper continued to function as the Palestinian Authority’s principal official print and digital platform during a cycle marked by the April 2025 appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh as Deputy President of the State of Palestine, the fragile October 2025 Gaza ceasefire framework, the 25 August 2025 killing of correspondent Hasan Dohan, and the absence of structural editorial-independence safeguards.

June 2026