In winter 2023 I walked across Jordan, Israel, Palestine and the illegally occupied Syrian territory of the Golan Heights. I made up my own route along with following the Jordan Trail, Israel National Trail and Golan Trail. It ended up being about 1000 miles of desert ramble, including 30,000m of ascent, which I completed in just over a month. I didn’t cache any water along the way, as pretty much everyone else says you absolutely have to do. It’s possible to do this without caching if you plan meticulously and can cover a decent amount of ground each day.
The following texts are taken directly from my Instagram posts I made along the way, so might not appear that coherent when read on this site.
“Everything has been designed by Israel to make Palestinians feel like strangers in their own country. Whether it is the huge areas of land expropriated and surrounded by barbed wire that one sees while travelling in most parts of the West Bank, the many settlements, the road signs, the military training areas, the danger and apprehension felt just from using the roads or the uncertainty about being allowed to pass from one part of one’s land to another, all these harsh realities conspire to make Palestinians feel that this land is no longer theirs, that it has been claimed by a powerful group who always get their way, so much so that they drive ordinary Palestinians into despair and make them despise life itself.”
Raja Shehadeh – A Rift in Time
After spending some time in Palestine there’s no way I can even begin to describe or do justice to what I saw there, but I was asked by people in the towns of Hebron and Bethlehem to take pictures and share the reality of their situation with as many people as I could, so here they are.
