Free Running Gaza
Two young Palestinians find an escape from the reality of life in a refugee camp through parkour.
In the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, Mohammed and Abdullah have found a way to distract themselves from the overcrowded tenements and squalid alleyways around them. Both young men have trained for years to become Gaza’s leading practitioners of parkour. Parkour involves traversing and scaling obstacles and barriers through running, jumping and vaulting.
Speaking of what parkour means to him, Mohammad said: “Parkour is more of an art than a sport. Parkour is a kind of philosophy. Not everyone can do it. It challenges the imagination.”
For Mohammed, Abdullah, and the latest generation of young Palestinians to have grown up in the camp undereducated and unemployed, it is the ultimate means of escape.
