Spider Parkour’s love for their sport defies Israel’s bombs as they find ways to show off their skills during the war.
In Rafah, a group of children let us hear our loud applause as two young men somersaulted across a mound of mud to a tent settlement sheltering people fleeing Israel’s war in Gaza.
Their fluid movements make passersby stop to admire the skills of the Spiders Parkour group.
Their homes have been destroyed during three months of Israeli bombing. Five of his team members have died, but these young survivors of the war are undeterred.
They find resilience through parkour, turning neighborhoods destroyed by Israeli bombing into stadiums for their favorite sport.
“We have been practicing this sport for many years. We train in public places, on flat terrain and on sand dunes,” Najem Ammar, a member, tells Al Jazeera.
When the war broke out, Ammar and his friends began training on the ruins of bombed neighborhoods.
“It is a message to the world that our determination to live is stronger than ever and to show the world the extent of the destruction caused by Israeli bombs,” he says.
Find a way through the destruction
Parkour is a sport in which participants move from one point to another using the obstacles in their path to increase their efficiency, according to the World Federation of Free Running and Parkour. Its name derives from the French word “parcours”, which means “the way through”.
Rafah’s fearless athletes jump, climb, run, jump and sprint through the destruction caused by Israel’s bombings.
Parkour became popular in Gaza in recent decades and took on special symbolism as young athletes turned destruction into obstacle courses for their sport.
Spider Parkour, founded in 2011, is popular among young people on the besieged strip. They use YouTube tutorials as primary guides, developing and polishing their parkour skills, which members say meet international standards.
Due to the Israeli siege of Gaza, the group’s members have never had the opportunity to showcase their skills internationally.
Since the war, they have turned the rubble of houses destroyed by bombs into their free spaces.
Members walk through narrow streets in war-affected neighborhoods and, upon finding an environment that might provide them with the opportunity to practice their skills, they head out.
Walls with huge holes left by missiles form an obstacle through which they can jump and land on the other side.
“It is a way of telling the world that nothing can stop us or force us to give up our dream, our sport and our identity,” says Mohammed Fawzy sitting on a pile of rubble.
“He [parkour] It also helps us release negative energy and works as a distraction from the bad things happening around us,” he adds.
Spider Parkour hopes that one day they will be able to travel and represent Palestine in international competitions.
They say that for them this dream is inseparable from that of freedom from the occupation of Palestine.
