Defense
REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Runners pass the Israeli barrier during the annual Palestine Marathon in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, March 31, 2017.
- Every year, runners weave between Palestinians and Israelis during the Palestine Marathon.
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I never intended to run a marathon, but when I realized that I would be on hand for the 2019 Palestine Marathon, I registered. I did so in solidarity with the goals of the aptly named Right to Movement, the global running community founded in 2013 to organize the first annual marathon there.
The irony was not lost on me, however: in training for a marathon meant to highlight the right to freedom of movement, I would utilize my privilege as a foreigner to access land that Palestinians themselves could not enter.
I trained in the West Bank, dotted with Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and military bases; in the Gaza Strip, the Mediterranean coastal enclave under Israeli blockade since 2007; in the northern Israeli city of Haifa; and in Jerusalem, the western part of which has been part of Israel since 1948 and the eastern part of which Israel occupied in 1967.
While I realized that there would be challenges during my training runs, what I hadn't anticipated was the window they would provide into the lives of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.