Palestinian youth practice “parkour” skills in Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip
A budding physical discipline called parkour is attracting several youth in Gaza, aged between 12 and 23 years old to pass their time training in cemeteries, former Israeli settlements and in abandoned or run-down buildings. Parkour originated in the suburbs of Paris and originates from the French word “parcours,” meaning route or journey. In a very literal sense the sport is about overcoming obstacles, using your imagination and tackling the restraints of physical barriers to “run through” a journey. It inspires a philosophical outlook on life that reflects this acrobatic discipline.
Mohammed al-Jakhbeer and Abdallah Enshsi started this discipline several years ago and they have been providing entertainment and inspiration for several young refugees who are now learning the art of parkour through observation and replication. Mohammed and Abdallah have decided to form a team called Gaza Parkour, they are taking it upon themselves to train the next generation of parkour athletes to ensure youths can experience this liberating physical discipline.
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According to Mohammed, parkour helps untangle the “anger and depression” that comes with living in the narrow, politically and militarily confined Gaza Strip, home to a boxed-in population of 1.7 million Palestinians.
They believe that, one day, their ticket out of Gaza will be through parkour even though, they joke, “Gaza International airport used to be our only way out and now it’s in ruins.”
Images by Klaus Thymann via the New York Times
Author: Linda Pappagallo
Linda's love for nature started when at the age of eight she discovered, with her dog, a magical river in the valley of a mountainous region in Lebanon. For four years Linda and her dog explored along the river, until one day she saw construction scrapers pushing rock boulders down the valley to make way for new construction sites. The rubble came crashing into the river destroying her little paradise, and her pathetic reaction was to shout at the mechanic monsters. Of course that was not enough to stop the destructive processes. As she continued to observe severe environmental degradation across the different places she lived in the Middle East and Africa, these terrible images remained impressed in her mind. However, environmental issues where not her first love. Her initial academic and career choices veered towards sustainable economic development, with particular interest in savings led microfinance schemes. Nevertheless, through experience, she soon realized a seemingly obvious but undervalued concept. While humans can somewhat defend themselves from the greed of other humans, nature cannot. Also nature, the environment, is the main “system” that humans depend on, not economics. These conclusions changed her path and she is now studying a Masters in...
