Rawya Rashad Said al-Shawa (Arabic: راوية الشوا, December 1944 – 3 July 2017) was a Palestinian journalist and politician.

Shawa was born in the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood of Gaza City in December 1944 to a Lebanese mother and Palestinian father.

She married Aoun Saadi al-Shawa (who succeeded her father as mayor), with whom she had four children.

[1] Having graduated with a literature degree from the American University in Cairo in 1964,[2] she worked as a journalist for the al-Nahar al-Maqdasiya and al-Quds newspapers.

[citation needed] In the 1996 elections to the Legislative Council, she ran as an independent candidate in Gaza, and was one of five women elected, becoming the first female Palestinian MPs.