We are pleased to share a new publication on the Yalla Project’s work. “Urban Regeneration Without Blueprints: Social Networks and Cultural Infrastructure in Nablus Old City,” by Abdalrahman Kittana and Alessandra Gola, was published on 17 June 2026 in Urban Matters Journal, as part of the special issue Everywhere // Anytime: The Past, Present, and Future of Urban Palestine.

The essay tells the story of Yalla from the inside. It describes the Kasbah of Nablus as a dense, layered urban organism, where commerce, social life, resistance and surveillance share the same streets. It argues that the Old City faces a slow form of urbicide: not only the destruction of buildings, but the gradual erosion of confidence, everyday presence and centrality caused by recurring raids and uncertainty.

In response, the authors propose “revivification”: an ongoing, never-finished effort to bring the city back to life within instability, rather than waiting for a stable “after.” Drawing on Yalla’s approach of research-by-doing, the essay shows how a small café, a guesthouse and a multipurpose venue were restored step by step, funded by their own income, and how the Old City’s social networks of neighbours, craftspeople, shopkeepers, performers and storytellers became the project’s real infrastructure.