Juhaina Habibi-Kandalaft was born in Jerusalem in 1947 and raised in Haifa and Nazareth. She was married for 55 years to Raphael Kandlaft, who passed away in 2022, and together they raised four children and welcomed 11 grandchildren. Kandalaft currently lives in Nazareth.

Initially Habibi-Kandalaft practiced painting as a hobby and as a personal manifestation of feelings and inner impulses. However, after thirteen years of marriage and while raising 4 children Habibi-Kandalaft started studying art at the Oranim College for Arts (Kiryat Tivon) and graduated in 1985. She worked as a painter, sculpture and art teacher for 26 years instelling the love of art in hundreds of pupils in Nazareth schools. She devoted the rest of her time to art and creation in her private studio and painted a rich collection using oil colors, mixed techniques and clay sculptures. 

As an Arab Palestinian artist, her strong belonging to her tarnished homeland is shown strongly in her paintings where the land, the trees and the soil are strongly represented. Her work is an attempt to combine her longing to the heritage and the past with emotions current day events trigger. She gathers the forms and colors of  her land in her own way to build a new entity. She uses symbols of the woman and the land combined with the Arab arabesques in an abstract expressionist manner.

Ms. Habibi-Kandalaft participated in different group exhibitions locally and abroad, including in England, Egypt, Qatar and Germany, and had some solo exhibitions in Nazareth and other cities. She is a member of Ibdaa' Association -  an Association for the advancement of the arts in the Arab sector.