Palestine Hotel

Palestine Hotel
Palestine Hotel, 2010
Location in Baghdad
General information
Location	Baghdad, Iraq
Coordinates	33°18′54.72″N 44°25′5.88″E / 33.3152000°N 44.4183000°E / 33.3152000; 44.4183000
Opening	1982

The Palestine Hotel (Arabic: فندق فلسطين), often referred to simply as The Palestine, is an 18-story hotel in Baghdad, Iraq located on Firdos Square, across from the Sheraton Ishtar. It has long been favoured by journalists and media personnel. The hotel overlooks the Tigris on its eastern bank and is located several hundred metres south of the Baghdad Hotel.

The hotel was built in 1982 by the Iraqi government and managed by the French hotelier Le Méridien as the Palestine Meridien Hotel. UN-imposed sanctions following the Gulf War led Le Méridien to dissociate itself from the hotel, which was subsequently renamed simply the Palestine Hotel. Starting with the 1991 Gulf War and continuing through the 2003 invasion of Iraq, this was one of several hotels foreign media used to cover situations that developed in Iraq.

A controversial incident occurred during the 2003 invasion of Baghdad. On April 8, 2003, an American tank fired a shell on the hotel, killing two journalists, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and José Couso of Telecinco Spanish television. Three journalists were wounded. One of the survivor journalists was Japanese Mika Yamamoto who died in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war on August 20, 2012.