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A collection of Naji Al Ali's cartoons captures his image from the reader's perspective.

On July 22, 1987, political cartoonist Naji Al Ali was killed in front of the offices of the Kuwaiti daily Al Qabbas in London. Winner of the Golden Pen award of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers in 1988, Al Ali, a Palestinian, was described as one of the best cartoonists since the end of 18th century. The New York Times said if you wanted to know how Arabs viewed American policies, you had to look at Al Ali's cartoons.

His cartoons were anxiously awaited by Arab readers every morning through more than 25 years. Yet there is no archive of his work you can easily refer to.

The first book containing some of Al Ali's political cartoons was published recently. In just over 100 pages, A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali, with an introduction by American comic reporter Joe Sacco, came out in commemoration of the 22nd anniversary of his assassination.

Even as the British government of prime minister Margaret Thatcher closed the London headquarters of the Israeli secret service (Mossad) and expelled two Israeli diplomats following allegations of Israeli involvement in Al Ali's killing, others accused the Palestinian Liberation Organisation of the killing.

It was said Al Ali had received warnings from the PLO asking him to stop criticising its leadership.

Al Ali's drawings were critical not only of Israel, America and Palestinian leaders compromising rights of the Palestinian people but was at times the voice of millions of ordinary Arabs resenting their oppressive regimes. Al Ali kept memories of his homeland and set himself a simple belief - it is his country, whatever the whole world said or did. As his friend Iraqi poet Ahmad Mattar once said: "Naji Al Ali's works were like a compass which always pointed towards truth; and that truth will always be Palestine."

Born in Al Shajara in Galilee, Al Ali moved to South Lebanon after his family was expelled from their village during the Nakba. His political awarenesss grew at the Ain Al Helweh refugee camp where he lived at the age of 11. That led to his frequent imprisonment. Al Ali developed his artistic talents by drawing on the walls of his prison cell. Gassan Kanafani - a political activist and journalist who was assassinated by Israel in Lebanon - saw his drawings and published some of them in his publication Al Hurriya in the early 1960s. He then moved to Kuwait, where his iconic creation, Handhala, appeared in his cartoons in 1969. A little boy, his feet bare, his hair spiky and dressed in rags, Handhala appears almost the same age Al Ali was when he was forced to flee his village in Galilee.

Regularly appearing in cartoons with his back to the reader, Handhala became an immortal witness to the scenes of poverty, violence and injustice Al Ali portrayed in his cartoons.

But Handhala was not always the silent witness, at times he became involved. As Sacco says in the introduction to the book: "Handhala lost his cool. He raised his hands in anger. He threw stones." (That was after the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres.)

A Child in Palestine classifies Al Ali's cartoons into five chapters: Palestine; Human Rights; US Dominance, Oil and Arab Collusion; The Peace Process and Resistance. Some critics say the choice of the collection in the book is politically overloaded and reflects little of Al Ali's artistic genius. But that is how many in the Arab world saw Al Ali's cartoons. That view was clear in the Arab film Naji al Ali, in which Egyptian actor Nour Al Sharif played Al Ali.

A lot has happened since Al Ali's assassination but his genius in innovation is still valid. Handhala "remains a potent Palestinian symbol and will for a long time to come. Unfortunately, with the Middle East's twin taps of violence and despair still open, there is all too much for Handhala to see," Sacco writes.

I have seen many of Al Ali's cartoons in my youth, watched a documentary and a film about him after his killing and yet I enjoyed reading the book.

Dr Ahmad Mustafa is an Arab writer based in London.

- A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali Verso, 120 pages, £9.99