Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of human resource management (HRM) practices on organizational commitment in Palestinian universities, and to examine the mediating effect of work engagement as a black-box mechanism that defines HRM practices--organizational commitment relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The source of the data is from 237 employees (academics and administrative staff) from Palestinian universities. The authors used structural equation modeling to verify the hypotheses. Findings: The results reveal that HRM practices have a significant impact on employee organizational commitment in higher education. In addition, work engagement showed a significant mediating effect between performance appraisal and organizational commitment on the one hand, and between rewards and compensation and organizational commitment on the other hand. Practical implications: The study suggests university managers to capitalize on HRM practices as vehicle to trigger positive work-related attitudes. Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of HRM practices on organizational commitment through the mediation role of work engagement in higher education of a non-western context. The study is one of the few studies that is conducted in the middle east.