Ghada Terawi was born in Beirut in 1972 to a Palestinian activist couple from Al Tireh near Jaffa. The family lived in Beirut until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, then in Syria, Cyprus, and Egypt, before finally settling in Tunisia for a few years. She studied at the American University in Cairo, where she earned a bachelor's degree in international relations.
After the Oslo Accords, Ghada Terawi was able to return to Palestine, where she began working with several Palestinian filmmakers in 1998. She has directed and produced seven films that address diverse themes, such as what drives young Palestinians to throw stones at Israeli soldiers in Staying Alive (2001) and the fantasy of returning to their homeland in The Way Back Home (2006). Her latest project, The Forgotten, portrays Kozo Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who participated in the PFLP bombing of Lod Airport in 1972. This film, begun in 2016, remains unfinished due to lack of funding.
Ghada Terawi is the chair of the Shashat Women Cinema association (Ramallah). As a director, she supports the call to boycott Israel, launched in 2005 by Palestinian NGOs.
