Palestinian climbers defy wartime obstacles to scale West Bank cliffs

Bethlehem – As Palestinian climber Faris Abu Gosh encouraged his friend ascending a limestone cliff in the occupied West Bank, the war raging in Gaza momentarily slipped from his mind.

Scaling rock faces has offered solace since the fighting erupted, but he and his friends have also had to face mounting challenges in what was already not an easy place for their budding climbing community.

Yet, they have simply adapted, finding detours around new Israeli checkpoints or ways to avoid the heightened risks of confrontations with soldiers or settlers living in the surrounding hills.

“For the last seven years I’ve been completely obsessed with climbing and developed my entire life around it”, said Abu Gosh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy student. 

On a recent Saturday, a dozen Palestinian and Italian climbers were geared up in Wadi al-Ghul, a West Bank river valley that turns lush and green with winter rain.

As much as Palestinian climbers enjoy this recently opened spot for its natural beauty, they also appreciate its location far from Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

And when Israeli troops are in the area, “we feel safer when foreigners come climb with us,” said Abu Gosh.

“Soldiers usually don’t bother white people.”

– Increased military presence –

At least 435 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, according to Palestinian Authority data.

“In the first month, it was almost impossible to leave certain towns and villages, because the Israeli army closed roads,” said Heba Shaheen, president of the Palestine Climbing Association. 

“It was really hard, and it is still very hard,” she added, describing a widespread feeling of insecurity in the West Bank.

Climbers have to travel on dirt roads and make long detours, Shaheen said, noting they might have to drive 90 minutes just because they cannot cross a 50-metre (160-foot) stretch of road that is only for settlers.

One of the climbers, Tariq Kaabna, told AFP an Israeli soldier had just that morning taken a water bottle from him and dumped its contents into Kaabna’s backpack.

At the Ein Qiniya site, near Ramallah, “there has been an increase in settlers and soldiers going into the area,” said Abu Gosh, who hails from the Qalandia refugee camp.

“Once the climbers were kicked out of the climbing site for military purposes. This stuff actually wasn’t happening before,” he added.

Ein Farah, a canyon filled by a river in winter time, has been closed to all climbers by Israeli park authorities since the beginning of the war.

Though located in the West Bank just 15 kilometres (9 miles) east of Jerusalem, the site was declared an Israeli nature reserve named Ein Prat, a practice that rights groups have labelled as a roundabout way of restricting Palestinian access to West Bank land.

– ‘Nothing could help us forget’ –

The West Bank’s rocky topography offers massive potential for establishing or “bolting” new routes, dozens of which have been opened over the past 15 years. 

However, climbing’s physicality brings the Palestinian sporting community further into the land struggle that has rocked the West Bank since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the territory.

“When we were developing we would see or hear the military but we thought it would be safe,” said Tim Bruns, a US climber who bolted some of the first West Bank routes in the mid-2010s with his friend Will Harris.

Bruns told AFP he was set to join a climbing trip to the West Bank in December with mountaineering star Alex Honnold, but it was cancelled at the last minute over security and access concerns.

For Palestinian climbers like Shaheen and Abu Gosh, they have felt guilty at times for continuing climbing while the war rages in Gaza. 

“Before the war, climbing was an escape. But after the war started there was nothing that could help us forget what is going on (in Gaza),” she told AFP.

Though the Palestinian climbing community is in its early days, Shaheen hopes they will one day get to compete in the Olympics. 

The inclusion of the Palestine Climbing Association in the International Federation of Sport Climbing in February 2024 was one step in this direction.

“The ultimate goal is to sustain the climbing in Palestine by Palestinians,” she said.