The Palestine Festival of Literature was hosted by Birzeit University on 6  May 2010. All of the participants were present with a plenary discussion that included Rachel Holmes, Suheir Hammad, Susan AbuHalwa, Adam Foulds and Jillian Feldenstein. The plenary was moderated by BZU Professor and Novelist, Dr. Ahmad Harb , followed by a dozen of workshops in which PalFest participants worked with small groups of students from various departments. Topics included human rights and international law, creative writing, art and politics, and spoken word poetry among others. Of note, Ahdaf Soueif was presented with the Mahmoud Darwish Award and students Emile Saba, Lubna Taha, Alla Hatou and Alice Yousef were honoured for their being awarded scholarships in creative writing by the Qatar Bloomsbury Publishing Foundation. The students have participated in creative writing workshops through the Palestine Writing Workshop in coordination with PalFest. Participants and students agreed that the event was a great success.

In fact, PalFest 2010 opened on 1 May 2010 at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem. The group were held for six hours at the Allenby Bridge border crossing, but made it to Jerusalem in time.