Later, in 1982, she visited the Sabra and Shatila camps after the massacre, accompanied by the writer Jean Genet, her long-time friend. It was to her that Genet dedicated Quatre heures à Chatila. She represented Palestine in France and in Europe between 1989 and 2015, and continued, together with a group of intellectuals, academics and filmmakers, to defend that cause.
In 2019, Leïla Shahid took part in LEFFEST, in the special programme dedicated to Palestine which celebrated its art and its artists. As she said at the time in an interview with Isabel Lucas in the newspaper Público, “the best contribution to the Palestinian cause […] is cultural and artistic, because it humanises Palestinians. They have been dehumanised. How many people in Europe know who they are, what they dream of, how they make music, how they make films? Very few, except those who have been to Palestine or the occupied territories, or to the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.” Together with the directors Simone Bitton and Avi Mograbi, and the intellectual and writer Elias Sanbar, she took part in the discussion “Mémoires de Palestine”, and spoke with Simone Bitton about her film Mur.