Kelani was born in Manchester, England, the daughter of Yousef Zaid Kelani (1925- ), a physician and endocrinologist from Yabad near Jenin in the West Bank, and Yusra Sharif Zu'bi (1931-2004), a homemaker from Nazareth in the Galilee.
Kelani is a maternal cousin of Haneen Zoabi, the first Palestinian Israeli woman to be elected to the Knesset, a relative of Shawkat Kelani,[REF] a prominent doctor and co-founder of An-Najah University in Nablus, and the great niece of Wajih al-Kaylani, Shaykh al-Islam of the Philippines [REF].